


So sing a sweeter song

by authorettejasmin



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Emotional Healing, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Injury, Lost underground, M/M, Multi, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Predator/Prey, Rebirth, Redemption, chase - Freeform, split personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:29:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7757899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authorettejasmin/pseuds/authorettejasmin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been quite a few years since The Pharoah moved on to the afterlife and Malik thinks it's time for him and Ryou to move on as well.<br/>And how should they finish their years of healing? Obviously by going to Egypt together and finally laying their demons to rest.<br/>But a collapse in a pyramid results in Ryou and Malik trapped underground and   its up to them to get themselves out.<br/>It's just too bad they're not alone.<br/>Because even if Ryou and Malik are finally ready to let go of their demons, that doesn't mean their demons are ready to go.</p><p>In fact, they refuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Down the hole

**Author's Note:**

> This title is cool, but I'm not sure if it's right so I might change it later, sorry.  
> （；￣д￣）  
> Enjoy though!  
> P.S I did the fanon Malik/Marik thing just cause it was easier.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryou and Malik go on a tour.

**RYOU**

“Malik, what are you doing? Don’t wander off.”

“Oh come on, I lived in places like this, I have more of a right to be in here then the guide and I know way more stuff than him. Honestly, Horus is the Sun God? How can they let this man tour people? Come on Ryou, don’t you wanna see more?”

Ryou glanced over his shoulder into the dark tunnel they’d come from.

“Won’t they notice we’re missing?” He asked nervously, teeth already chewing on his bottom lip. Malik said it was a good thing, that he’d progressed from just blindly smiling at people to actually showing when he was upset. Although Malik had joked that Ryou should keep all his smiles for just him.

And maybe Yugi.

At least Ryou assumed Malik was joking, finding it easier to just brush the comments off with a roll of his eyes then actually take it seriously.  

Malik huffed, gold bangles and necklace glinting against the lamp he held. Though Malik had upgraded to a full shirt, he still couldn’t let go of his Egyptian obsession with shiny things. Ryou suspected it was because he liked seeing the sunlight reflect off them, he needed bright, attention-grabbing things around him to make up for the not-so-bright childhood.

Ryou had had to convince him not to get a belly ring and Malik had pouted for days. But when he’d knocked his belly against the counter corner in their apartment, and Ryou had remarked how well that would’ve gone if he’d had a piercing, Malik had winced and declared that belly ring’s weren’t that flash anyway.

“Ryou, I’m going ahead. If you don’t come you’ll be left in the dark,” Malik sung, teasing Ryou as he walked off, going deeper into the tunnel with its walls closing in. Ryou, startled and not as irritated as he should be, rushed after. Usually Malik was more inclined to listen but his dogged determination to have them explore all of Egypt and lay their demons to waste, had him yanking Ryou around like a kite in turbulent wind.

“Malik.”

He caught up, panting a little, not because he was unfit but because the air down here was dusty and hadn’t been moved in years.

The tour guide had said there’d been a collapse five years ago, three men dying in the incident. He’d also said the tunnel went nowhere and so, served no purpose to the tour other than to be a cramped, claustrophobic place.

It smelt of old death; a scent that lingered and never washed away. Ryou would know, he’d tried to get the scent off him but it was hard to get away from. Malik said that it was all psychological and he smelt fine, more than fine, absolutely delicious in fact, and was that a new brand of shampoo he was using, hey I’m going to borrow some.

Malik had quoted his psychologist for that (sans the shampoo comment) as he was wont to do – more willing to pass the advice on to others than listen to his psychologist himself. Malik had even tried to get him to go to his psychologist too but Ryou had had enough of people trying to tinker around with his brain. That had been a very short conversation that Ryou had put a firm end to.

So it smelt of the dead, just like the tour guide had said, but Malik hadn’t cared, assumed that the tour guide was scared and that he didn’t know anything. Malik seemed absolutely certain that there was a secret passage that no ordinary human could find down here.

Ryou had had to remind Malik, once again, that though his upbringing had been a little different, he still was an ordinary human too, that they both were.

Malik had raised eyebrows at him, and laughed him off. Ryou could’ve protested, that Malik’s other half was gone now and that Ryou was no longer possessed by the Spirit of the Ring but they’d had this debate before and Ryou knew when to let things go. Not always, but he’d been living with Malik long enough to know when to give up. He’d learnt when to pick his battles many years ago with a far more stubborn roommate (though could you really classify it as a roommate when they got the whole house?)

Anyway, it just made things easier for him to let Malik go off on his own tangents, though he would pull him out if the occasion really called for it. It wasn’t like he was in any position to judge how people dealt with their trauma anyway.

He still wrote letters to his dead sister whenever life got too stressful (though that had been approved and recommended by a psychologist he’d been forced to see after his mother and Amane’s death.)

Ryou, not for the first time, felt a little tinge of guilt that if anyone could hear his thoughts they’d think living with Malik was horrible when it really was the best decision he’d ever made.

He was pulled from his circling thoughts when they hit a dead end, a mass of dirt and boulders that slaves had built – and Ryou was really interested in how The Pharoah would explain his slave labour – were piled up, blocking them off from going any further.

Malik set the lamp down, turned its setting up so that it white-washed most of the room, glared into Ryou’s eyes and bared a mural on their left. Malik turned with glee, fingers touching over the little Egyptian men and women, guards and a usual re-enaction of some God being bowed down to.

He was 75% sure it was Khepri, though the scarab might signify another God. He could read the writings but he always had difficulty remembering which God stood for which.

And a picture, surprisingly, of his Ring.

Ryou dropped to his khaki-covered knees, fingers unthinkingly trailing over the carving and breathed, “it’s the Ring.”

Malik didn’t answer, too preoccupied himself with the etched carvings.

Ryou looked at his hand, the next words hitching in his throat and coming out strangled as he saw the painting of the Rod underneath it and how Malik was frozen.

“Malik,” Ryou got out after a moment, because he had to take his focus off the Ring – off the memories. Ryou would not let himself get sucked into the past. He’d moved on (he’d always been able to disregard The Ring once someone else was in trouble and what did that say about his own self-worth?)

“Malik,” Ryou repeated. “We need to go. Now.” He reached out, clasping Malik’s hunched shoulders.

“This shouldn’t be here,” was Malik’s response.

But this was the closest tomb to where the final battle had taken place, and this could have once been a passage to the Pharaoh’s - to King Atem’s, tomb.

“Malik, you don’t need it.”

The shadows that had been bleached out by the lamp’s light grew against the walls. Ryou looked up to see his own shadow, a wide and terrifying thing, shake its body with laughter.

“Malik!”

Malik jerked, his attention landing on the darkness crawling like fingers onto the light-spattered bricks, ghosting the shape of his own shadow, and they both stumbled back.

Unknowingly Ryou’s back smashed into an upraised piece of brick, pushing it back in.

Stone rumbled and Malik wrapped his arms around Ryou’s waist. Dust poured from the roof and filled the air. Ryou, blindly, somehow reached out and caught the lantern with hooked fingers.

Malik tugged him, wordlessly urging him to run and they did, for a while (like the path wouldn’t end), instinctively running in terror with their shadows chasing beside them.

Ultimately they didn’t make it far.

The floor fell out from underneath them and they tumbled into the dark, Malik shrieking and Ryou echoing him. Stone and rock broke off with them, the spot they fell through quickly become distant as gravity did its job.

But even in the panic and immediacy of it all, he could have sworn he saw something hovering at the edges of the hole, the body of a human with its hands curled into the crumbling stone, the head of it a black pulsing shape of a scarab.

Looking down at them.


	2. The pool of faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryou and Malik are not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sound effects are much easier in Japanese└ ( ಥ⌂ಥ)┘

**RYOU**

They landed in a body of water, deep enough that Ryou, separated from Malik, was confused as to which way was up and which way was down. He rolled in the water for a moment, feeling the heavy pressure of it all around and was hit with a blind panic.

He stretched out, feeling like the water was thicker to move at his feet and lighter at his fingertips. He tried to hold himself still and let the buoyancy in his body tell him where to go but after a few seconds he knew he had to move. He swam what he thought was up, the air in lungs seeping out in bubbles and his chest starting to burn and all he could think was that he was going the wrong way.

He broke through the surface with a gasp for air. It turned to sputtering as water went down his throat and he coughed in racking heaves.

A cough echoed back and, finally breathing right, Ryou brushed his wet, sodden hair out of the way. Grains of dirt and dust caught under his nails but his face had been washed clear of the mess.

Malik was on land, having heaved himself up and out of the pool of water, his own hair dripping wet over the top half of his face. Ryou swam over and Malik helped pull him out.

They sat there for a while, on the corner of the pool, their legs still half in water as they tried to take in the shock of what had happened and slow their racing hearts.

The fall down had been dark and long, except for the light of the lamp. But the lamp had been pushed out of Ryou’s arms by the air velocity and since they were heavier, they had fallen faster, only able to watch as the lamp became a pin-prick of light above them. Ryou didn’t know how they’d survived, from that height the water should’ve become like cement and shattered their bones on impact.

Then again, simple things like a children’s card game had turned into a death battle, so a fall to his death just turning into an early bath didn’t seem all that odd in the bigger scope of things.

It did explain how far down into the water he’d fallen (and that could’ve nearly been his death if he’d chosen the wrong way.)

The lamp lit the room, having landed in a much shallower part of the pool. The lamp’s glow didn’t extend far though, just enough for Ryou to have seen Malik, and to make up about a metre above them.

But he and Malik were close to the dark and, staring into the abyss with Malik still trying to catch his breath, Ryou felt like something was staring back at him. He couldn’t look away, was scared to, but goosebumps sprinkled his arms as he felt the overwhelming urge to get away from this place.

But it had to be just his imagination -he’d be best to just ignore it and focus. In the rest of the world it was okay to be paranoid, to know bad people waited to hurt people like him, but anything in here was long dead, all that could be left were memories, and possibly rodents. Nothing that could hurt, just gross him out a little.

Taking stock of what happened, Ryou realised how bad the situation was; no one knew they were here, and Egyptians had a habit of booby-trapping everything. Paranoid lot, if he thought so himself.

(Not that they hadn’t had a reason if The Spirit’s memories were anything to go by, the bleed-through knowledge of things he’d seen in his dreams and intuitive leaps that came from having two minds share one brain. The Spirit had been very skilled at desecrating the tombs of the dead.)

“Damn it,” Malik swore. “A trap, we fell into a trap. But I didn’t touch anything, there was nothing I could’ve done. . .” He seemed to reach some enlightenment in his mutterings, adding, “ah, unless, yes, it had to be the murals.”

Ryou slid back into the water, heading backwards to the lamp which glowed brightly from the pool floor.

Malik continued his mutterings, “No, that’s not right, other people must have touched them. Those three guys died but that was because of a cave-in – and if it was a trap then the same thing would’ve happened to us, instead we got dropped down into the middle of nowhere.”

Ryou, still facing the darkness behind Malik, fumbled around for the lamp, his movements sending out a ripple effect and splashing the water against Malik’s legs.

“Did you – Ryou, what are you doing?”

“Getting the light.”

Malik, squeezing his hair in attempt to dry it, nodded, “Yeah, obviously, but why are you doing it backwards?”

Ryou swallowed, his fingertips grazed the lamp.

“Ryou?” Malik frowned, expression concerned, and he glanced around, checking to see if there was something he was missing. For all that Malik spouted off his psychologist’s teachings as if he wouldn’t take any on board, he truly had. One of those had been for him to take note of others feelings more often, to respect his own but not value them as more worthy than others. And his years of controlling others, manipulating them, had taught him a great understanding of body language.

He’d seen what Ryou was trying to hide.

Fear.

“What is it?”

“Get back into the water,” Ryou said, throat tight with panic. Nothing there, not that he could see, but he felt it nonetheless. And after years with his very own monster, Ryou had learned to trust his instincts.

He lifted the lamp from the water and a shadow rose up behind Malik.

“Behind you,” Ryou shrieked past the lump his throat, and Malik dived into the water without a second thought. Ryou grabbed at him, pulled him back as he held the lamp up and there, on the shore, Malik’s old Rod lay.

A beat of bewilderment in the dominion of disbelief.

Malik let out a shuddering exhale and without thought, tried to reach forward. But Ryou reflexively held him back, the light flickering as the lamp swung in his hand.

“But, Ryou, it’s my Rod, it’s my _Rod_.”

If he was Yugi or the others with their blinding optimism and happiness and naivety, he’d know Malik could fight this, that he was stronger than the pull of his Rod.

But he wasn’t blindingly optimistic or happy or naïve. He was just himself, and though he always hoped for the best, sometimes bad things happened and there was nothing you could do to change it. You just had to survive it.

He’d survived it.

And while Ryou understood that Malik regretted what he’d done, what his other self - the being they’d called Marik - had done, and that he’d never do it again, he knew Malik also missed it. After too much Egyptian wine Malik had admitted that he missed the purpose he’d had when his whole life had focused on revenge; he missed the drive of it, he missed the control of commanding the Rare Hunters to do his bidding, the certainty that he was right in his decisions and actions. Even so far as the thrill he’d had when making those stronger than him succumb to being his Mind Slaves.

Malik probably wouldn’t do anything evil with The Rod now, he’d adamantly swore he would never go as far as he had but -

It had been Malik that had cut him, not Marik. Just because Ryou didn’t like to think about that didn’t mean he forgot. It had been five and a half years since the Battle City games, four since Malik had sent him a letter of apology. Three since their infrequent letters of correspondence had turned into an odd friendship of random meetings. And two since Malik had left his family, breaking out on his own and landing in Japan.

Two years since Yugi had suggested they live together and their strange, unexpected friendship had turned into what it was now.

Ryou had faith in Malik, but it wasn’t an unreasonable faith and he’d feel much better without The Rod here to actively tempt his friend. The Millenium Items had been made from death and pain and the souls had been released with their destruction.

The tainted history of it had all been cleansed from this world with Zorc’s final defeat.

So how was The Rod here now?

The water splashed, cold against Ryou’s thighs and stomach. Malik heaved himself forward with an unexpected fervour that broke Ryou’s grip, saying “I’ll use it to get us out of here Ryou, I’ll keep you safe.”

But just as Malik was about to take The Rod unto himself, longer tanned fingers circled around it. Malik froze and Ryou lost his footing in the water, the lamp flying out of his grip and over to The Rod. It smashed on the ground as it should have broken on the water surface and the glass cracked open.

The light went out, plunging them into the pitch-dark, their heavy breathing conspicuous against the silence.

Ryou wanted to speak but his tongue was heavy in his mouth, the silence gaining sound of its own by choking it all from him and his senses yelling ‘danger!, danger’.

“M-malik?” He eventually got out.

The boy in front of him was shaking. “That was my Rod.”

He didn’t know what was happening to his friend, he seemed almost mindless, close to the moments after he woke from a nightmare and before Ryou could get him out of bed for a cup of warm tea (so he didn’t burn his tongue.)

“Malik, we need to get out of here. There’s something in here.” Ryou shifted, the water rippling and spread out.

“But why is my Rod here, Ryou?”

“I don’t know, but you can’t touch it,” Ryou told him firmly even while his adrenaline soared. He held Malik tighter and asked, “Do you understand?”

Dark, suffocation, silence.

“It’s like I can feel it in my head again.”

Ryou’s jaw clenched shut at the words and he had to work at it to open his mouth again.

“Don’t go near it. Promise me Malik.”

“. . .”

“Malik,” Ryou spoke louder than he wanted but Malik was shaking his head with twitches and jerks like he water was still in his ears and he was trying to get it out.

“Last time you touched that Rod you _stabbed_ me, you nearly killed Yugi and almost got killed yourself. I’m not letting you go near it. I’m not letting you do that to us.”

He’d never said it so directly but there was no room to be vague now.

It seemed to penetrate the fog of Malik’s mind and with a shiver, his neck cracking, he said, “yeah, I – I don’t need it. I won’t let it hurt you.”

And then something whispered at the back of Ryou’s neck, words against his skin that didn’t come from Malik.

_“You’re here.”_

Ryou shrieked and Malik yelled, “what? What is it?”

“Get out. Get out of the water.”

A wet clammy hand closed around his and together they trudged and frantically fought their way out of the water that was now trying to keep them in, every raise of their legs difficult because of the suction that refused to let go.

A light glow seemed to emanate from underneath the water, casting out enough light that Ryou’s eyes started to make sense of the darkness. He looked at his knees as they scraped against the roughened stone around the edges of the pool.

There were faces in the water, their mouths moving, lids closed and faces waxen.

_“One more chance.”_

The luminescent faces swirled around his feet as Malik recklessly tugged him to his feet, their whispers pervasive and all Ryou could hear.

_“For Akhenaden’s curse to end.”_

Malik dragged him forward, not having even looked at the faces. Almost as if he hadn’t even heard them.

Ryou completely left the pool and the faces turned off like a light switch flicked.

Completely unable to see, blinking his eyes at the sudden change, Ryou had to rely on Malik who had grown up in tunnels much like these.

Their heavy footfalls were muted by the sheer space of the room but to Ryou it was as loud as their panting. Malik manoeuvred this way and that, Ryou following behind, unseeing, unknowing, and terrified.

Who was Akhenaden? What were those faces? What was going on?

He was done with this part of his life, with the insanity of dead spirits and evil gods and stupid card games that could kill you.

His chest ached fierce as his asthma flared up, pulling him from his thoughts. Funny how even housing a three-thousand year old Spirit bent on revenge couldn’t get rid of inefficient lungs.

_Tap, gliiinng. Tap, tap._

Ryou tensed, looking around though there was no point. “There’s something following us.”

Malik huffed ahead of him and they took a sharp turn.

“I know.”

Ryou had been in darkness once before, in the Shadow Realm, a memory and time he had chosen to forget. Yet even in the Shadow Realm, Ryou had been able to see. He hadn’t wished for it at the time but in comparison to this pure blackness where there was no difference between Ryou having his eyes closed or open, it was somehow better. Ryou had felt safer when he could see what was coming. He could prepare himself then.

But this, he had to give up all control to Malik. He’d never wanted to give up complete control to anyone ever again. Not even to his best friend.

Especially not to someone he cared for. He’d been down that road once before, ignoring all the warning signs.  

Does betrayal hurt more if you can see it coming? Or does it just make you more the fool?

_Gliiiing._

There it was again; a type of jagged, drawn out sound, like something being dragged out across the ground.

Malik swore, and Ryou felt his shoulder slam into something hard. Their hold on each other loosened for a second but Malik wrapped an arm around Ryou’s back, swung them backwards and crouched them down.

Throbbing pain, his shoulder was on fire and tears were forming. Ryou went to groan but Malik covered his mouth and whispered, with a hot and heavy breath, into his ear.

“Quiet.”

Malik’s breathing evened out, went low and deep even though he had to be winded. Ryou tried to do the same, the bottom of his skull pressed against raised bits of stone in shapes that he couldn’t recognise with his matted hair in the way.

 _Tap, tap_. This was an odd sound, like the wearer had metal cased upon their feet. A _tap_ that was closer to a _chink-chink_ but not quite.

 _Tap . . . tap._ The steps slowed down

His shoulder throbbed, sharp sparks of pain tingling their way down to his wrist and fingertips, curling his fingers and spasming his palm.

His throat clenched and a high keening noise tried to leave. He couldn’t help it, no matter what his mind said against it.

So Malik took away his struggle by deciding how best to shut him up.

Quickly, firmly, Malik planted his lips over Ryou’s to swallow the noise.

*

**MALIK**

Unbeknown to Ryou, Malik was searching the wall with his free hand, skimming over caricatures and symbols until he found the one he wanted.

An upraised box to the left of Ryou’s hip was a familiar shape of nostalgia, his ability to read the meaning still the same even after all these years and all the time spent abroad.

 _Tap._ A laugh that raised the hairs on Malik’s neck and made him think of purple eyes and Shadow Games.

He pressed the hieroglyph, still swallowing Ryou’s cries that the poor boy couldn’t stifle himself.  Maybe in another time he could actually enjoy this.

Walls dropped around them, the floor bottoming out into a smooth tunnel that angled slightly backwards.

But it wasn’t quick enough for him to miss the cold touch of something evil that left its print across his brow, a strand of energy infused so that he couldn’t wipe it off.

It followed him, even as they slid down the thousands-of-years-old chute, the energy throwing a line out back to its caster.

And leading it straight to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Researching mythology is fun. Also I have a map for this whole story should I upload it at the beginning of this fic or the end?


	3. The past sends in a little bill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryou and Malik take some time to rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if anyone will get the play on titles I've been doing?~

**MALIK**

It was a short trip, the new room filled with a gentle light and a soft box of sand to ease their fall.

“Ryou,” Malik turned automatically, ignoring the energy as it sunk into his skin and numbed the area. “Are you alright?”

Ryou, body curled in on itself, teeth clenched and lids wrung shut, was desperately holding onto a shoulder that was all wrong and not in the right place.

He tried to hold in his grimace like the pain was nothing. “I am afraid I will have to say no to that.”

“What happened?”

Behind his concern over Ryou, Malik realised he could no longer feel the energy in his brow; nothing there when he pushed with the vestiges of magic he’d only retained because his Ishizu had retaught him their Clan’s spiritual practices.

After the carving had been engraved into his back, he’d barely been able to reach to the well of magic that his sister so easily drank from. Rishid hadn’t been from their family, hadn’t been blessed by the Gods or whatever it was that gave them their heightened senses of awareness, control of their spirits, the ability to see auras and in some precognition. Rishid hadn’t had the prerequisites like the Ishtar family did but he’d learned as much as he’d been able to, and tried to keep Malik himself focused on that peaceful path.

For someone almost psy-null, Rishi’s dedication had allowed him an awareness of his own spiritual aura and control over it that rivalled anyone else he knew. He may not be able to see or feel anything outside of himself but nothing could influence or possess Rishid without his permission.

Malik wished he’d had that core strength but the darkness (his psychologist said it was a D.I.D – Dissociative Identity Disorder – manifestation) had already been in him by then. And with the power of The Rod came the decision to turn to different practices to control and utilise his power.

Very unsafe, ambitious, power-hungry methods.

After The Rod and Marik were gone the huge vacuum in both his psyche and spiritual self had nearly enveloped him and Ishizu, recognising the similarity from her own withdrawal pains from The Millennium Necklace (though she’d only ever use it as an added tool and not the source of her power) had immediately sought to fill the vacuum.

It had been a long, and arduous journey, and his ability was barely anything to what it had been but it was enough.

It was more than he deserved.

And so it was with that small, underserved power, that he knew it was unlikely the energy marking him was gone.

He hoped, he wanted. But wishes and hopes don’t carry themselves and he didn’t have enough ignorance left in him to do the carrying.

He’d just have to put whatever hope he had into getting Ryou out of here and back to the surface. Geez, he could almost laugh, it had been such a long time since he’d have to hope to see the surface.

It was like a nightmare coming back. But at least his experiences had taught him - if Ryou had been here on his own he’d be dead and Malik was never going to let that happen.

He let the reality of the situation settle over him. They were stuck underground, they were being chased by something, Ryou was injured and though he’d studied Egyptian lore and most likely had retained a lot of The Spirit’s knowledge, Malik was the one with the actual experience.

He’d get them out. Builders always left themselves a way out of a tomb, and Malik was the most likely to find it out of the two of them.

“M-my shoulder, I hit it, on the way down.”

There fall had been pretty fast but no bumps or protruding bricks. It seemed that had just been his side. Malik gingerly touched the shoulder blade only to elicit a startled yelp from its owner. He sat back on his folded legs, sand crunching underneath his bare shins.

“It’s out of place, I will have to set it,” Malik said softly, not liking it but knowing that Ryou wouldn’t be able to make it far with the constant pain. Though he really shouldn’t presume what Ryou could or could not do, the boy was far stronger than anyone gave him credit to be. He’d never lost himself to Bakura, he’d just been pushed to the back. Unlike Malik, he had never given up, never let the darkness take over willingly.

“Do you . . . have . . . to?” Ryou asked through moments of pause, swallowing another startled cry as he rolled against the wall and jarred his injury. Malik swapped sides, glad for the course in Medical Aid that he had done when he’d seen a flyer against the board of his new apartment block. The medicine they’d known beneath the Egyptian sands had been rudimentary at best and awareness of one’s spiritual state and how close they were to death didn’t matter if you didn’t have the skills to fix it. If they’d just been a little more open to the changing world and not so stuck in their way, his mother wouldn’t have had to die. The Pharaoh had asked for them to carry on his words, not to seclude themselves from the rest of the world.

“Sorry sweetcakes, I do.”

Cheeks plump but damp with sweat, Ryou’s smile was sincere this time as he whined Malik’s name.

“At least it’s better than sugar plum,” Malik replied, trying to keep things light like they were just having one of their play-arguments to distract Ryou from what was coming.

Still, he kept an eye on the tunnel they’d come out of, splitting his attention to that and Ryou. He was certain he’d heard the groan and rumble of the wall closing behind him as they’d fallen down but he was too amped up to take their (somewhat) safety for granted.

He ignored the tantalising thoughts of The Rod even as they slipped so easily into the leftover grooves in his psyche where anger and hunger for power had burrowed in.

Ryou disagreed to his nickname and Malik snapped his shoulder back into place. His friend arched, chest cracking upwards, back bowing in and bit clean through his lip.

‘Ah,’ Malik thought with hindsight and worry, ‘I really should have put something in his mouth.’

It was the realisation that he had unintentionally hurt his friend that snapped him out of the shocked daze he hadn’t thought he was in. Now he could recognise it for what it was, his psychologist (“you keep referring to me as ‘my psychologist’ and ‘doctor’, Malik what do you think this says about our relationship? And how you feel about me?’) having educated him deeply enough in the immediate responses to trauma for him to register what he was exhibiting now.

Disassociation, light-headedness. Inability to focus.

Ryou flopped sideways into his waiting arms and stayed there for a moment to recollect himself, not knowing that Malik was recollecting himself too.

It took some time but when he felt in control, though he wasn’t sure if it was the drying water or his shock making his skin clammy, Malik nudged Ryou upright.

“We need to strap and bind your shoulder,” the Egyptian said though he had no bandages himself and would have to search this room for something to improvise with.

“Well,” Ryou added lightly, “at least it was only one shoulder.”

*

Ryou had been lucky enough that his bum bag had stayed attached in all the chaos. Malik had had his too but when they’d tipped out its insides they’d only gotten some change, chapstick and a very wet, very fried phone.

It was pretty new too but with his nose wrinkling Malik had thrown it away with a huff.

Ryou, due to his history had been a bit more prepared.

Though you couldn’t quite tell now, his friend had the leftover muscles issues of someone who hadn’t a father to care about his diet, and then years housing a spirit who forgot the necessity of food.  Suffice to say Ryou had been malnutritioned for the most important growing period of life, and though better now, it had left him relying on a daily workout routines and nutritionist appointment twice a week.

Ryou had been working hard on getting better from the moment Anzu had mentioned how little of her cakes he could eat, which in turn had alarmed an observant Honda enough that he had strong-armed the boy into visiting their school nurse.

At least, that’s what Yugi had passed on to Malik (the messages to Ryou at that point in their relationship had been nowhere near that level of honesty). Yugi had confided to Malik that he hadn’t even noticed, and that this had opened his eyes to how ignorant of a friend he’d been.

Though Malik somewhat agreed that the Yugi group hadn’t quite treated Ryou with the affection and inclusion he’d deserved, he’d just been the guy to offer him up as sacrifice to a God Card so he’d really had no place to complain.

Now that he was in a place to complain he didn’t have a need to.

So Ryou had persevered and they’d all supported him the best they could and eventually the nutritionist appointments had turned to monthly and then to bi-annually.

But Ryou still had pills to take and couldn’t get by without less than ten hours of sleep a day.

In Ryou’s bag was a lot more than Malik’s, including a tiny med-kit containing band aids, bandages, some anti-bacterial ointment, tweezers, a pair of scissors, a vial of alcohol and pain-killer. There were two pills but Malik refused to take it, because he wasn’t the one with a dislocated shoulder.

“Not quite sure I can take it dry,” Ryou explained because even during those first few years when half his family was gone and before his father completely left, he’d never been able to take his prescribed anti-depressants without gagging.

And that was with water.

“Just work up some saliva or chew it.”

Ryou frowned at the thought of it and Malik thought to himself that kissing sure built-up a lot of saliva.

He made the joke but the anxiety thrumming under his skin made it hard to pull it off. He could tell that Ryou appreciated the attempt but he jostled his arm and the smile disappeared as the pain returned anew.

Malik wrapped his hand around his friend’s calf, keeping his fingers firm into the soft flesh hoping it would ground Ryou.

“Would the alcohol work?” Ryou pondered after the pain had eased.

“I’m pretty sure that would burn your throat so maybe leave it.”

Ryou picked up the small vial anyway and started to read the ingredients on the back.

In the mean-time Malik pulled out two thick, long cloths accompanied with tiny metal buckles that stretched to create a make-shift sling out of.

He quickly fashioned the sling, so focused on the task that he felt at a loss when he was done. Ryou had slumped against the wall at some point, the vial of alcohol set down, breathing heavily and brow dotted with perspiration. With nothing else to do, Malik found a fresh wipe and patted at his friend’s temple. Ryou quirked a smile of thanks but kept his eyes closed.

Malik dithered, and checked the bum-bag again, hoping that maybe there was a tiny bottle of water he missed or something (not likely.)

He touched something round and cold.

And pulled out a tiny vial of clear liquid.

His mind stuttered to a halt as he stared what was in his grasp. That hadn’t been there before, he’d been sure of it . . .

He turned it to read the back and the black letters seemed to form a shape of a bug. He almost threw it, thinking that something was on it but another blink and it was just normal text.

Must be his mind playing tricks on him . . .

It was another breathy little gasp from Ryou that kick-started him back into gear.

He put a pill to Ryou’s lips, told him he found some water and then helped his friend drink it down. Ryou’s throat spasmed with the little amount of water but after a quick breather he was able to take the second pill.

Ryou drank to the last drop and Malik put the empty vial down next to the alcohol vial, his thoughts all white-washed and buzzy.

Ryou still had his eyes closed and was just gingerly holding his arm to his chest. So, with nothing else to do for the moment, he sat by his friend with their backs to the edge of the sandpit and rested his head on the rim.

The rounded nothingness of the opening slightly above them reminded Malik that even if they were safe for the moment, things could easily change.

He let Ryou rest and kept guard.

This at least, was something he could do.


	4. Who stole the cards?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yugi makes an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just say I'll update on the 'weekend' rather than a set day okay?~  
> ＿〆(-ε･｀)ﾉ^☆  
> (And that's the Australian weekend for me~)

**YUGI**

“Joey, stop it already,” Yugi whined, laughing as he tried to shove Joey away, the others’ cheeks all smushed up against his upraised hands.

“Come on Yugi, just let me touch it, come on. For your good ole’ buddy Joey.”

“No, this is grandpa’s card, I’m not even supposed to have it out.”

Joey jumped him, and Yugi fell back onto the bed, the cased, collectable card of the very useful _Labyrinth_ trap card crinkling underneath him.

“Joey!”

Joey jumped back, mouth open wide comically as he freaked out. “Is it okay Yugs? Did I hurt it? Did I? Aw man, I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

Yugi paused and stuck out his tongue with a rebellious noise. “Just kidding.” He grabbed the card and made a run for it, hopping down the last few stairs so he could beat the twenty-two-year-old running behind him.

“Yugi I’m gonna get ya, you tease.”

Laughing, Yugi skidded into the store, slapping the card into his grandpa’s unsuspecting palm before heaving himself over the counter and behind a shelf of trading cards.

He licked his lips as he settled into his spot and tried to keep his breathing quiet as he heard Joey thunder after him. His smile pulled at his cheeks and he wet his lips again but this time he caught something.

He rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth and pulled it back to see what looked like sand on his skin. Or maybe it was dirt.

He wiped it off and shook off the confusion.

Strange, it wasn’t even that dusty today.

“Yugi,” Joey had landed at the bottom stair and Yugi heard his grandpa, in his old gruff voice, say that he’d have to hide the card in a better place this time and no, Joey was not allowed to touch it. “You did that on purpose,” the boy directed to Yugi, knowing he had to be close enough to hear and Yugi had to agree. He’d never planned on letting Joey touch it, it was just fun to tease him.

Yugi supposed that was a big thing that had changed about him. Whereas before he’d been too nervous to joke and too stressed out in the midst of his whirlwind high school years, now he just loved teasing his friends, especially Joey. Yugi could almost see why Kaiba did it, because Joey had the most hilarious reactions and always played along with him.

Though he wouldn’t tell his friend that. He didn’t want to start Joey on a rant and Kaiba would completely disregard the implication of it all before sniping back at Joey.

The relationship between Joey and Kaiba . . . well, at least it wasn’t as bad as it had been back in high school. You could even call them reluctant . . . not friends, but comrades in the basic sense of the word. Although everybody’s relationship had been different in high school – they’d all had to grow up and live somewhat normal lives.

Malik had been the bad guy back then and Ryou, well, you never knew with Ryou because the Spirit of the Ring had been so good at acting. It made Yugi sad, to think of that time; Malik with his personality split in half because of what his father had done, a twisted man who’d laid all the blame at The Pharaoh’s feet. But still, Yugi would never really know if that was what the Pharaoh had wanted, to have the secrets passed down by carving into the first-born son’s back. Yugi remembered the disgust and shame and anger that had filled his Other Selves - Atem’s (his name was Atem, it shouldn’t still be this hard to think of him like that) soul room. He didn’t think Atem had known of the horrific practice.

It had been five years and he still slipped in his head, reverting back to the names he’d known The Pharoah by.

My Other Self still rolled off his tongue so easily, and Yugi had come to terms with the fact that it was mostly because it kept them connected – a feeling he tried to pretend didn’t stem from possessiveness.

It had, was still hard, to let go. But Atem was a good name, a nice name, it was who his Other Self was. But it was because of Atem that The Pharaoh had left him. He’d learnt his name and gone back to that world, with all his Egyptian friends: Set, Mahado, all of them.

Atem came back into existence and then Yugi was alone.

He didn’t like to think about that.

The door jingled and Yugi popped a head out to greet the customer, his grandpa too focused on keeping Joey away from his prized (not as prized as the Three Gods but they were long gone) cards.

“Hello, welcome to Kame Game shop, would you – Oh, hi Honda,” Yugi said cheerfully, happy to see his friend and happy to leave behind any sad thoughts.

That’s right, he wasn’t alone. He had his friends and his family and that was enough. He’d made sure it was enough because this was his life and he was going to damn well live it.

Honda waved, grinning widely but was distracted from saying anything by a loud bump. Concerned, both boys saw a smiling grandpa Mutou, with no Joey around him. Both said nothing and turned back to each other to catch up.

Honda was the most tanned he’d ever been, skin darkened from his recent trip to America where Otogi was currently setting up his latest scheme in the gaming world, right opposite Kaiba’s current Duel Monsters tournament. The latest gaming venture had extended on to, what was it, dice that you could stand on that steadily moved you where you commanded so that you were right in the thrill of the fight? Yes, something like that.

Yugi couldn’t really keep up to date with those two. Whenever Seto created one new thing, Otogi had to one-up him. It was a rivalry that involved lots of sneers from Kaiba and flirtation and hip cocking from Otogi. If Yugi was just with his grandpa then he would say he thought Seto might even enjoy the competition, both companies thriving on it as fans became fanatically loyal (to the point of buying every merchandised object) in order to see their favoured game and said-game creator come out the victor. There were even some sites and forums that theorised about and unspoken love between the two rivals that Yugi had found quite amused and linked to Honda (not Otogi because he would pander to his audience and definitely not Kaiba because he would most likely stone-wall Yugi’s calls and messages. He may have done so after a certain incident at a certain catch-up that may or may not have involved Joey and Kaiba being separated from the group for four hours. Alone. Honestly, Yugi may have ‘accidentally’ partnered them up but he’d never thought they’d actually get lost during a simple little treasure hunt.)

In any case, teasing Kaiba and Otogi about their (personal) companies’ rivalries always had a 50/50 chance of being taking favourably or incensing everyone around. Yugi thought they needed to just relax and enjoy the banter sometimes, but then again, he wasn’t the one getting teased.

Honda had been there because he, though not a particularly imaginative man, had the steady head for business and expansion. He travelled the world supervising Otogi’s stores and companies, fixing up disputes, employee complaints/and or failure to meet expectations, checking the money situation, sales and everything in the business world that sometimes Otogi forgot. Otogi was a creator, and that meant long, busy hours in a large room, devising a new and better way to kick Kaiba’s ass. Most thought Honda was the thick brute there to keep Otogi safe (out of trouble really), but he had quite a keen business eye to him.

Keen enough to obviously go and enjoy himself fully in his down time. Unfortunately, the most recent holiday had winded up with Otogi deciding to go the beach with him, where said game-creator had proceeded to woo every female around them. This had resulted in a scandal when Honda had been forced to drag the man away from a very wealthy, very _married_ woman. A famous married woman, who hadn’t seemed to care when her rich and powerful husband had come storming up in a tiff and tried to beat up Otogi. And that was when the cameraman had taken a photo and which Yugi had seen on his morning news feed before getting a short message explaining the basics from Honda.

Rubbing his arms that were starting to itch, Yugi could only assume Honda was here to hide-out from the press.

Honestly, Yugi thought Otogi would have been murdered by some jealous lover if Honda wasn’t there to be one himself. Not that he and Otogi were lovers, but Yugi could see the spark and he’d taken great pains to coax that spark into a fire. Now he just had to get Otogi to commit and Honda to actually admit that he liked a boy as more than a one-night stand.

A busy life for a busy boy, amidst trying to finish his Master’s degree in Archaeology so he could go to Egypt again and research the Pharaoh’s tomb, sharing the wonders and lifestyle that the world didn’t know but which he could unearth (he knew what Ancient Egypt was truly like, he just had to get proof – a frustrating endeavour but nonetheless fascinating.)

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, Ryou had taken a few similar courses with him, though his major was still undecided – Anzu (after a few too many drinks) had suggested a few art courses, touting that if his diorama and sculpting skills were good enough to send them all into the past then he should totally make a career out of it.

That advice, while ultimately helpful and coming from the right place, had been much more awkward for the non-drinkers of the night. Which had basically just been him, Ryou and an over-tired Malik.

Atem had wanted him to move on and live his life, his path wide open for all a thousand choices. But he just couldn’t let go. Just like that puzzle all those years ago, he’d dedicate the rest of his life to this obsession, to fitting the pieces together and puzzling out the history of the lost Pharaoh.

Duel Monsters still held the remnants of obsession for him and the nostalgia of Atem so every so often he’d play or maybe enter a tournament or two. In between that Kaiba usually bugged him enough for a rematch to show that he was the true King of Duel Monsters and Joey always wanted to practice for his next up-coming tournament.

The tournaments were done in study breaks or if he needed to top up his finances once they had dwindled – luckily Duel Monsters brought in good money, and he was very thankful that he and his grandpa no longer felt any of the financial worries that had hit after his father had died and his mother had moved to work in a different city.

And the stress relief it gave him was something he needed every so often, something to enjoy that he could put all his effort into, something that wouldn’t result in death if he won or lost. Not to say he lost, he was still beating Kaiba 22- 5 (and Yugi might be a nice guy but it wasn’t just his pride on the line, it was the memory of The Pharaoh’s and there was no way he was letting Kaiba beat him, even if he spent his whole time trying to subtly console Kaiba afterwards without damaging the man’s ego.) Kaiba would be even more enraged if he learnt that Yugi was 61-11 with Joey. Not that he kept count, Joey was the one doing that.

Joey really liked rubbing it in Kaiba’s face how often he lost to Yugi, though the guy surprisingly never told Kaiba the truth about their matches. Though maybe Joey had an advantage since they knew each other so well. Yugi couldn’t really say.

Duelling was a bittersweet joy, it was such a big part of who he was, what had made him the way he was, but it also hurt, because every so often Yugi would mention something to The Pharaoh, both aloud and in his head, only to have no answer.

In the last five years, Yugi had never had a girlfriend. Or boyfriend or anyone significant. He and Anzu had attempted something more but it had fizzled out when she’d left for America. He would never begrudge her for it, was so proud that she was chasing her dream of being a dancer.

He already knew where the other the other half of his soul was anyway, and while he may be complete on his own, there wasn’t anywhere for another person to fit in, not if they weren’t Atem.

He just wasn’t enough to be what Anzu deserved. And luckily she’d understood, because they’d always been friends first, possible-lovers next.

Last he’d heard she had two co-stars vying for her affections anyway, a guy and a girl who wanted to be her partner not just on the stage but in life too.

 “So how’s Malik and Ryou? Ryou said he’d call me at 3 today before their tour but he hasn’t yet, though I do suppose the time difference can mess him up,” Honda interrupted Yugi’s train of thought. He tapped the side of his face, mouth twisted in amusement. “Although that kid is as scatterbrained as Joey over there.”

A habitual, defensive, “hey” was heard but Yugi wasn’t listening.

Hm, it had been a while since he heard from Ryou and Malik, though they’d said they were going on a tour of one of The Great Pyramid today. And usually Yugi wouldn’t worry, it wasn’t like Ryou didn’t miss a phone call now and again because Malik had decided they needed to wander off on some grand adventure (though half the blame had to stay on Ryou getting too caught up in the adventure as well) but he’d been feeling funny today. He kept thinking about the past.

He’d been told that grief didn’t have a timeline but he’d been doing really well lately. But now his mind kept wandering and that taste of blood was back in his mouth, more fragments of sand nestled into the thin hairs of his arms.

His arms itched, like bugs were burrowed under his skin and that itch was spreading itself out like a dull sort of burn.

He’d been doing so well recently too.

“Yugi?” Honda asked, concerned, and Joey, hearing it too, crawled out from where he’d been.

 “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Yugi waved them away but both boys didn’t accept that. “Well,” Yugi said, after some prodding and guilt-tripping added in by his grandpa. “I just, I don’t know, it’s probably nothing –”

“It’s never nothing Yugi.”

“It’s never nothing Yugs,” the boys chimed in together and Yugi wanted to smile at the two best friends, more alike than they knew. Pain had come from duelling, from the heavy burden of destroying Zorc and losing their Pharaoh, but they wouldn’t be here now without it. They wouldn’t be friends and he’d go through all the pain a thousand times over just to have this.

“Well, I’ve had this bad feeling ever since I woke up, and I keep thinking about, you know, Ryou and Malik and . . . Marik and the Spirit of the Ring.”

He didn't mention the odd sensation in his body, not even as he rubbed his arm and felt sand tumble from his skin to the floor.

Joey frowned at Marik’s name and Honda got that peculiar, almost understanding look he got on his face whenever Yugi mentioned the Spirit of the Ring (and one day Yugi would ask why Honda had never seemed to hate the Spirit, never saying a bad word out against him but always just tried to protect Ryou and get him involved in the group. But that wouldn’t be today, like he hadn’t asked those other days and maybe that was because he didn’t want to think about The Spirit and what he’d ultimately become. It hurt too much and his second-hand guilt could still be felt even with thousands of years distancing him from the massacre.)

“And now that you’ve said Ryou hasn’t called, the feeling just got worse.”

And it had, like something grabbing and twisting all the bits of meat in his gut and his chest was so tight that he had to force himself to take in a deep breath so he could feel like he was actually breathing.

The clouds seemed to part and the sun was just at the right angle that a ray came in and shone over the faces of Joey, Honda and his grandpa.

Yugi felt the heat from the sun grace his body, and it made the little bugs feet under his skin move faster, like they were twitching in excitement. His neck felt heavy again, the familiar weight of his Millennium Puzzle but when he touched his neck nothing was there.

He was warm and fresh and suddenly everything was so bright but Yugi just felt sick.

The itching stopped.

“Did you see that? Tell me I wasn’t the only one of us that saw that” Joey’s voice was sudden and seemingly loud and Yugi had to struggle to blink away the white spots he was seeing.

“What?”

Honda answered, “it was those weird bugs from tv, the ones that roll balls of dung but they were different somehow, some of them I could swear had little wings.”

“What? What about them?”

“Yugi m’boy,” his grandpa started but didn’t finish. Yugi blinked away the last of the spots and finally he could see everyone. Joey was still squinting, already stepped towards Yugi and the other two had hunched shoulders and startled expressions.

“They were everywhere on you,” Honda continued, “running up and down your skin.”

“You’re saying you didn’t feel that?” Joey added incredulously.

But he wasn’t saying that. He wasn’t saying it at all.

He frantically looked at the skin of his arms and saw nothing, felt nothing. The grains of sand, dust whatever, were gone, the crawling and burning fire sensation gone like it had never happened in the first place.

He met the other’s eyes one by one and saw his own confusion reflected back at him.

But there was one thing he wasn’t confused about because everyone knew that Yugi’s instincts were never wrong, and they were never over exaggerated. It was ultimately what made him such a good duellist and hopefully a good friend.

He always listened to his instincts.

And now his instincts were telling him that something very, very bad was going to happen.  Or had already happened and he knew it involved Ryou and Malik.

And Yugi was too far away to stop it.


	5. Advice from a bug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryou and Malik need to run.

**RYOU**

“I’m hungry.”

“I know Malik, you have said that a few times already.”

“That chocolate was a lucky find, but there was only one in your backpack,” Malik spun, all annoyed and hips cocked. “Why is that anyway? I thought you loved chocolate and candy and all that sweet sugary stuff which will go to your thighs one day.”

Ryou knew what he was doing, knew that Malik was pacing and chattering to burn off the excess stress he felt under the deluge of them still being stuck. It still started to grate after a while.

“I do,” Ryou said softly, trying to keep his arm still where it was held against his chest in the bind. Malik had found some old tattered cloth in the corner that he’d complained about but they’d made do.  Ryou, at that point, had just been struggling not to accidentally jostle himself that he hadn’t particularly cared on the quality of the cloth. Neither had he bothered to concern himself with where it had come from.

Malik had then despaired at not having a painkiller for him but unlike his friend, Ryou had been worried about getting a headache in all this heat (and lingering habits of forgetting to drink enough water) so he had stuffed some tablets in the pockets of his brown khaki shorts. Most of them were crushed or nearly dissolved from his pre-emptive swim but he’d scrounged it all together and downed it with the half-empty water bottle.

Some good luck in all of this mess.

Now his arm was only a mild throb that he could somewhat ignore.

Ryou continued, “But chocolate melts very quickly in Egypt Malik, it also melts very quickly when you are going underground into a tomb.  A trip that was only meant to be two hours. I didn’t even realise I’d left one in there.”

“Well, that was bad planning. I should plan things more, I’m a pretty good planner.”

If Ryou wasn’t incapacitated, he would have hit Malik for that comment. Yes, he understood the boy was hungry – one shared chocolate bar was not enough, but he was harping on about something they couldn’t fix.

At least his pacing had stopped in lieu of his criticism.

Ryou knew though that the frustration wasn’t really directed at him even if it didn’t stop his own instinctive reaction to bite back defensively. He knew he was insecure about his faults, but that was only because he knew it enough already without having anyone else nit-pick at them.

“There’s nothing in this room and I can’t find an escape and I am not going to starve down here Ryou. We are both way too amazing to go out that way,” Malik continued and really, maybe it was the still-there pain but Ryou really, really, wanted to bludgeon the Egyptian over the head.

If there was anything he’d gained with his time from the Spirit, then it was his temper. Of course he rarely showed it, and it wasn’t like he’d gotten mad before he’d been host to The Spirit, but now Ryou found it near second-nature to have a bit of simmering anger bubbling somewhere under the surface.

He wasn’t entirely happy about it but no one can stay positive and happy all the time after everything he’d been through. He just had to let himself properly feel the anger rather than shunting it away in a box until he couldn’t hold it in anymore.

He was still working on that.

He knew Malik had been on the receiving end of a vindictive and passive-aggressive Ryou more than he should have to. Eventually Ryou always apologized, (not that Malik didn’t generally deserve it but for how he got mad) usually by cooking up his favourite meal.

He was working on it because it was something he didn’t like about himself. He hated that he still found it difficult to tell Malik or others when he was upset, the real words he wanted to say staying in his mouth and back-handed snides taking their place.

He hated confrontation, he hated fighting, but wouldn’t that be better than the guilt he felt at his mean comments and the dash of patheticness that clouded his night-time ruminations?

The Spirit of the Ring had always said he needed to be more straightforward and stop crying like some timid, slave girl. They were better than that.

Ryou had always bit back that there was no ‘we’.

“Look around again,” Ryou said, because they needed a way out and it had been quite a while since they’d fallen down into that underground cavern. The watch on Ryou’s wrist had cracked sometime at 9.10, probably when he’d landed in the water. The second hand kept ticking between the .58 and .59 point. He’d guess they’d been down here for over an hour but when he’d asked Malik had responded with only 40 minutes. Must be a skill from growing up underground.

So it was around 9.40, 30 more minutes and the tour would be coming to an end.

He did suspect the tour guide would notice, now free of Malik’s interjections and corrections but the man would probably just hope they were at the back of the group.

 “I’ve tried pressing on all the hieroglyphs but none are working and the ones that did are blocked by some fall-in that could have happen Ra knows how long ago, and we can’t go back up the hole so I don’t _know_ -” Malik’s speech had fastened and he’d starting scratching his nails against his palm. Ryou went to calm him down before he’d started bleeding when they were interrupted by rumbling.

Both of them glanced up.

The ground shook beneath them as sand fell heavily from the hole they had come out of.  Malik rushed over, nostrils flaring and quickly pulled Ryou to his feet, ignoring the boy’s startled yelp.

“Back up, back up,” Malik quickly ordered. Ryou followed immediately, trusting that his friend would know where the safest spot to stand would be.

Malik retreated them back to a corner nearby a chipped pillar, holding onto Ryou with steady hands and a firm grip despite his tense demeanour. Ryou stayed quiet, knowing they just had to ride this out and hope that the roof didn’t come crashing down on them.

_Screeeeech._

A husky laugh.

“Malik?” Ryou said softly, fearfully, large eyes darting to his friend who was staring at the hole in abject horror. He turned, saw white fingers curl around the edge of the hole, and beside it, a gold-tanned arm with gold bangles and tanned skin and he thought, no.

The room shook and they heard the rumble and roar of stone door opening behind them.

When Ryou turned to look he saw it had, a passage way that Ryou could have sworn Malik had said was blocked. He shook Malik, steering his friend as he pulled the stunned boy through, ignoring the sand falling on their heads or how the passageway was empty of any rocks and completely bereft of light.

He thought he heard something scuttle in the dark and was hit with the nauseating what-if of stepping on a bug.

“Move,” Ryou ordered when Malik stumbled, still staring behind them because he couldn’t look away. Ryou wouldn’t -couldn’t - look back. He didn’t want to see.

“It’s not real, not real,” he tried to convince Malik and Malik made some half-choked noise at the back of his throat before saying, “of course it’s not real.”

He laughed, high-pitched and delirious.

“They’re dead,” Malik acquiesced and Ryou murmured an agreement. The passageway shook more and they both slammed sideways into the wall, coughing as the air filled with dust and all the shapes started to dim as the light behind them got further and further away.

_Tap. Tap._

Ryou was shaking, shaking, he couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t. Why had they even come here? For closure? For peace? It wasn’t enough, they should’ve just stayed home where it was safe and the monsters were just in their heads and not trapped in a pyramid with them.

Ryou fumbled against the wall with his good hand, trying to lead them because Malik was useless, staring back like he was waiting to see them. But there was nothing there, there couldn’t be. It had just been a trick of the light.

A trick of their minds. It wouldn’t be the first time for either of them.

Ryou’s breath came out faster, harsher, and he scrambled, trying to find a turn when his hand met a dead end. Nothing there, nothing. Trapped. No, there, a turn.

The blind leading the broken. Or was it the broken leading the blind?

He shook Malik and it jerked the Egyptian somewhat out of his daze enough for him to realise Ryou had no idea what he was doing and take lead.

“It’ll be fine,” Malik got out, “we just have to get away from here.”

A familiar, maniacal laugh. A mocking one echoed and joined in.

The barest of white peeked around the corner behind them.

Malik gave a frightened “no,” scrambling backwards with hands held up in defence. The abrupt movement made Ryou lose his one-handed grip on Malik’s shirt and he fumbled to grab at him again.

Ryou’s feet tangled beneath him, his balance upset by his bound arm. Something hit heavy at Ryou’s back, jarring pain up his arm taking the thoughts from his mind and the force of it pushing him left.

It pushed Malik right.

“Ryou?”

So dark, so dark and synapses of light flared behind his closed lids. Ryou tried to reach out for his friend but he could barely see his glitching figure and –

_Tap, tap, slide._

“Run!”

Malik ran, but he ran the wrong way, the pathway having split into two tunnels and he wanted to chase, croaked out a ‘Malik,’ but it was too late. Malik didn’t realise Ryou wasn’t behind him and as Ryou slid his body backwards, he saw the glint of metal, a wide grin and bulging veins.

Everything stopped in his head, his heart not going to the next beat and then when it finally did, it all came rushing back in.

The sounds; short, panicked breathing, bugs scuttling, a whisper of a name.

The smells; the air so stale, dust billowed up from his feet and into his nostrils.

The sensations; the sweat on his skin, the laughter ringing in his ears, the goose bumps on his flesh as he felt something reach out to that ever-present hole in his psyche that he’d patched up.

Like a dog outside a house, it pawed at the door to his mind and Ryou felt the ripples shudder through his soul.

He had no choice but to flee, to turn and run into the black abyss.

He hoped it wouldn’t lead to a dead-end.

He hoped he would find his friend again.

And he hoped; he wished and prayed with a strength he hadn’t done in years, that what his senses were telling him, was wrong.

But wishes and prayers had never helped him before.

And there were no gods listening to him now.

Just the bugs, scuttling alongside him.

 


	6. A mad spirit party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryou uses his brain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is such a fun chapter⌒°(✧ᴗ✧)°⌒

**RYOU**

His arm seared with intermittent bolts of pain, the medicine struggling to do its job against the aggravating heave of his chest. There was no light, his way only made by fingers against rough stone and the many things he tripped around. But then the wall left his fingers, opened up into a wide space and lights flashed on, one by one, flames either side of a wide chamber.

Ryou breathed heavily, glancing behind him but seeing no one though his skin still crawled. He returned his attention back to the front; a maze with odd warrior statues placed on them. There were only thin walkways, blocked off every so often by the statues. Where there were no walkways, it was just a black expanse that went deep down.

Ryou picked up a nearby piece of stone that had brittled and broken off the wall and dropped it down into the abyss.

He didn’t hear it reach the bottom.

Frantic hands ran through his hair, hard on his skull, and yanked a bit. Pain, calm down.

They’d left the bum bags, not that there was really anything left of use. Nothing he could use right now anyway.

Ryou dropped shaky hands and told himself, “Got to go, got to go. Just walk across Ryou.”

So the bag was gone, Malik too, but Ryou couldn’t go back. He’d just have to keep moving forward and hope they’d catch up at some point. They would, Malik was smart and once he realised Ryou wasn’t behind him, he’d figure it out. What he would do from that point Ryou skimmed over. The point was that Malik knew what his was doing and would be fine. Ryou had to focus on himself.

He was lucky enough that the torches were flaming bright and he wouldn’t lie that he was grateful to be out of the pervading overwhelming dark.

He wondered if there was a still-working ancient sensor that had ignited whatever oil was left, because there had been no one to light them for him. No matter, he accepted it as he accepted that this was the situation he was in and he just had to deal with it.

Malik was experienced in tunnels underground and Ryou was experienced in being dropped unawares into weird, supernatural situations.

Step one: recognise where you are.

He was underground in Egypt.

Step two: figure out where to go.

Well obviously he couldn’t go back so he had to go forward. And the only way forward was through this maze. It seemed odd though, that those statues, whilst placed dangerously in the way, would be where they were. The maze wasn’t so much a maze either because he could clearly see where he had to go to get to the other side.

He had studied Egyptian, not as much as to know what Malik did, but The Spirit of the Ring had left him with blank spots and a need to know more. He’d also picked up the language with an ease similar to Yugi’s; the lingering after-effects of their experiences.

He’d convinced himself he was researching the past to put his ghosts to bed, but the lie only stood up to others. He’d wanted to know everything that had made The Spirit who he was, what had happened to the being that had sometimes showed him kindness and had saved his life.

Bandit King Bakura, King of Thieves. Their last names had been the same and it cleared up the overwhelming discomfort he’d always harboured of The Spirit taking his name. Bakura had held onto it so fiercely, even when Ryou had fought and refused to call him by that name. It relieved and both disquieted him to know that at least that act hadn’t been of theft.

Calling him Bakura still held the tinges of violation however, because The Spirit of the Ring was a monster, the one that made him hurt his friends and who’d driven a spike through his own hand. But they had been together for years, even if Ryou had known at first.

With him The Spirit of the Ring had been . . . somehow different, had acted different when the two of them had been alone. He wouldn’t say he was warm and fuzzy but the more Ryou had become aware of The Spirit’s soul room across the hall from his own, the more The Spirit hadn’t been able to hide from him.

Even evil can’t be evil 100% of the time. Right?

Or maybe he was just trying to excuse The Spirit’s behaviour, maybe he was trying to change the memories so it didn’t ache so fiercely when he thought of how’d he’d just been a tool, a convenient object, a shell to inhabit to hurt Yugi and gain his revenge on The Pharaoh.

Ryou should’ve been stronger but he hadn’t and he had the rest of his life to atone for it. Sometimes he thought, ‘why me? Didn’t I suffer enough?’ but Mai had suffered, Joey had.

Anzu.

Yugi.

The Pharaoh.

They didn’t complain, didn’t ask why, just set their shoulders and made a new path to walk.

The Pharaoh may have come from bad people, he may have worn a monster’s trinket around his neck, but he’d been good and whole. And now he was dead. He was dead and so was The Spirit of the Ring.

It was Ryou’s time to shine, Malik’s turn to live, out of the shadows and fate of a horrible event that had happened thousands of years before their births.

So even though he wanted to know The Spirit’s true name, his identity and story, it was all just dusty forgotten history now.

Ryou shook off the dust culminating on his shoulders as he shook off the thoughts and checked behind him again.

“Just go forward Ryou.”

He stepped out, hesitant, feeling vertigo and how easy it would be to drop.

He took another step forward, slow and steady but his mind was racing. What was the catch? Egyptian traps were not something easy to beat and they were everywhere, there to protect the tombs of their Pharaohs’.

He looked, searching, noticing the small details the way he had when The Spirit had forced him to make the Millennium World. He’d always had an eye for these things. He’d noticed it in Honda and felt a connection. But The Spirit had noticed too. The Spirit had taken control as much as he could when Honda around, always wary of Ryou slipping up or worse, revealing the truth.

The Spirit hadn’t trusted him; he hadn’t trusted anybody. Ryou wasn’t naïve enough to blame him for that. Especially after all he knew now.

The statues were guardians, generic headdresses adorning them and both hands holding long machete-like swords. They wore the long skirts of Egypt, each of them on a thick slab of stone and had their left foot forward. Their eyes were just carved empty lines.

Ryou was almost at it, debating how he would get around when with a dusty rumble, the statue swung out, coming to life. Ryou gasped and scrambled back, taking two steps backward as his arms nearly pin wheeled and he had to drop to a crouch in order to hold onto the side of the stone beam with his one good arm. His other arm pulsed intensely.

The statue paused after it attack, and so did Ryou; waiting, watching. Why had it stopped?

A guardian, dressed in the traditional Egyptian outfit and headdress on. It held two swords, one in each hand, right arm up highest, and left foot forward. Same as all the others.

All the same. Protecting something.

Still crouched down he couldn’t take his eyes of the statue. He was scared. Ryou had never had a problem admitting to himself when he was, hard to deny it when you pretty much live in that state all the time. So he took that fear and changed it into to action, because he’d let himself hole up and hide and stop living when his mother and sister had died. His experiences, his friends, but mostly his friendship with Malik (because Yugi and co. were nice but they hadn’t really been thinking about him during the whole fiasco in High School), those feelings were worth fighting for.

Malik had shown him how to leave the darkness and go into the sun, and he thought he’d shown him a little something back to.

Ryou raised himself up, not completely, still hunched and fighting to ignore the pain of his hurt arm, but ready for an attack. The drops either side of him seemed to beckon him, mouths gaping wide and encouraging him to fall down their throats.

He focused on the path beneath his feet, the strength in his legs balancing him. He wouldn’t fall off.

He wouldn’t die here.

He took a step forward.

The statue moved, both arms swinging this time and in panic, Ryou again lost his balance and back stepped. The moment he did however the swords, in mid-swing, stopped in their place. Which was lucky because the tip of the sword was just at the fat of his cheek.

He wanted to run, back away from this stupid game or maze or whatever it was, but the way back was dangerous and the more time he wasted here the more time he was giving to The – the thing, whatever it was behind him - to catch up.

Unless it had chased after Malik instead of him?

Breaths, the sweat on his skin was cooling even as he stood there, the underground not a sweltering mess like the original halls above had been.

Was the tour finished? Had their absence been noted?

He let himself breathe and calm down, taking in his surroundings again, and then he noticed something.

His left foot was forward.

Left foot, left foot. All the statues had their left foots forward. The statue wasn’t moving, wasn’t attacking, yet before, when he’d taken a step forward, it had tried to kill him again.

He must’ve moved his right foot forward, he had to of. He couldn’t remember exactly if it had been, but to be honest he didn’t quite want to double check.

What was so important about the left foot? If he understood the reason, then maybe his thinking would be proved right.

Left foot, left foot. The Pharaoh was considered a living incarnation of the Gods and so his guards respected him.

Wait, think Ryou. Left foot is on the side of the heart, give you heart to your Pharaoh –

Left foot shows respect so you should only face the Gods with that foot. The statue had attacked when he’d stepped forward with his right and now here he was, left foot forward. He just had to get past like that. He’d figured it out!

Ryou wanted to jump in excitement but settled for a relieved smile. It wasn’t really the time for excited theatrics but he’d figured it out and now he could reach safety.

He passed the first statue, taking care when he crept around it, to hold onto it otherwise he would fall. It wasn’t elegant, especially not with a bung arm still in his makeshift sling, but that didn’t really matter - though he knew Malik would’ve laughed and taken a picture of Ryou’s awkward position to add to the collection at home. He’d nearly made it to the end, thinking fond thoughts of Malik to get him through, bypassing three other statues when he heard the sound.

A familiar laugh.

He remembered, viscerally, the feeling of The Spirit being ripped out of him when The Pharaoh won. He remembered finally, _finally,_ being left alone inside his own body, as normal as everyone else in the world.

A lonely, foreign sensation - he’d never quite been able to fill in the space left.

Clinging to the side of the statue, the fine granules of powered rock and stone on his fingers pressing in, Ryou couldn’t move. Couldn’t turn and look.

_Tap, tap._

The Spirit made no sound when he walked, the hard-learned, never forgotten skills of a thief. He could hear this, so it couldn’t be him.

“ _Landlord_ ,” a voice whispered, a vibration of noise that travelled through the air and curled around his ear. He’d heard it in all emotions, and this one made him whimper. Move, move, he told himself, but keep the left foot forward.

He made it safely around the statue though his hurt arm burned so much tears pricked at his eyes and pressed on forward.

Faster, faster, but the steps behind him sped up, not willing to let him go. He went around the final statue, having to jut his knees around the back leg for a moment as he wavered in the open air, his slung arm pressed tight against his stomach, the muscles there tense and quivering.

His lashes were wet, panic in his throat. He couldn’t hear anything, but he didn’t look back. Even so, the presence was there, on the back of his neck, stroking dead fingers down his spine.

He threw himself forward, unable to stand what he wasn’t sure was real or imaginary and finally gave a backward glance. There was nothing there. Ryou stilled, shock and confusion freezing him in place because he’d heard him, hadn’t he? He’d been sure . . .  

A wave of relief, a wave of something he was stunned to realise might be disappointment, rolled over him. Ryou wanted to cry. He wanted to fall to the floor and curl into a ball on this centuries old floor, with the flames from torches that should’ve long been distinguished, keeping the darkness below ground level like a caged animal.

The Spirit was dead, gone along with Zorc. The stress and atmosphere of this underground labyrinth was playing on Ryou’s mind. Maybe there was some hallucinogenic contagion in here or something, developing over thousands of years with only bugs to terrorise. Or maybe it was his own mind, the darkness able to bring out his innermost fears ever since his time in the Shadow Realms. Malik had been there too, and he had childhood trauma as well. Yes, that seemed a more likely deduction than their long-dead personal demons.

Not really feeling relieved because now he had to question his sanity, Ryou decided to move forward. He had to hope, trust in that Malik could take care of himself, that he wouldn’t work himself up into a panic attack when Ryou wasn’t there to help him breathe.

It was okay, Malik knew what he was doing; at this moment Ryou was more likely to have a panic attack.

So calming himself down and holding his bandaged arm down since all the muscles had tensed, Ryou turned forwards in order to go down the hall.

Red eyes, a flash of teeth bared, and hair that was once white now more the grey of ash.

A tiny noise left him mouth, eyes so wide that the tears dried quickly. His heart beat seemed to freeze in his chest and there was a high-pitched noise blaring in his ears.

The Spirit of the Ring raised dust-covered fingers to touch his cheek, leaned in and said, “Why, I have missed you little landlord.”


	7. The caucus race and long tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malik doesn't like the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes are mine, you don't get to have them.  
> -It's funny that it takes almost half of this fic for my boy's dark counterparts to properly appear. Isn't that following the plot progression of most suspense movies?  
> It's only okay if the first half was actually suspenseful the whole time!

 

**MALIK**

Malik tripped, landing harshly on the ground and scraping his arm. It felt hot and wet and a stinging sort of numb and he knew there were probably a thousand tiny little rocks all caught up inside of the skin. But he had to keep going, had to keep moving.

He kept hearing that _draaaaaaaagggging_ noise. And he knew what it was, why it sounded like gold metal against stone floor. But that wasn’t right; The Pharaoh had saved him, he’d sent away Marik.

But what is light without the dark? And was Malik a complete person without him?

It didn’t matter. He’d rather be half of a human than have that _thing_ back near him. He’d never quite felt the level of seething animosity he’d lived with since it had left. He never wanted to experience it again.

Rage either simmers and fades or it burns you from the inside out.

If that monster came back, then there wouldn’t even be anything left of him but ash.

This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t.

Malik stood up and kept going, feeling that familiar feel of suffocation in the darkness. The memory of his father and searing pain and how he couldn’t breathe. How angry he’d been. And how _he’d_ come and taken all that anger away, taken it upon himself because _he_ had been the anger.

In Malik’s childhood home, in the dark depths of Egyptian sand and a labyrinth of stone and rock, he’d known every corridor better than the back of his hand. But, there had always been a torch, a lamp, light to protect him, light to show him the way. One time, when he’d been playing a game of hide and go seek with Ishizu and Rishid, the lights had gone out, a sudden wind tearing through the corridors and casting out his safety net. In the suffocating darkness, the familiar corridors had widened and expanded, changing shape into something threatening.

His brother had found him hours later, curled into a corner, crying and tracing his fingers over the hieroglyphs in his reach. When Rishid had finally calmed him down and taken him back to the light and a worried Ishizu, he had asked what had happened and praised Malik for not wandering off in ways he did not knowing and waiting for Rishid.

Malik had said that he’d tried to guess what each hieroglyph was and try to remember what it meant as a way to pass the time. He’d never thought to say it had been a game another suggested.

A voice that had told him to leave his spot. That they could escape now and have their family be none the wiser that they’d survived. _We don’t need to wait for the others, I know where to go. Let me lead and we can be free._

His father had berated his tears, his fear and most of all how Rishid - not even Tomb-keeper born, and Ishizu - a girl, could work their way through their home with no lights on and yet Malik - the first born son, could not.

Now in time he ran a labyrinth that was not his own but he did not hesitate. His legs ached fierce, his breath coming in pants and but he would be strong, even if the panic was high in his throat, and all he could hear were his unsteady feet, numb and clunky in their movements, and the _draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag_ of the Millennium Rod behind him.

If the sound wasn’t so close he would turn around.

Turn back.

Because he’d left Ryou behind. He’d left his friend and he hadn’t realised, hadn’t noticed till he reached back to take his friend’s hand and only reached out to empty air.

He’d paused then, the reality of betrayal choking him – and maybe it hadn’t been on purpose like so many of his betrayals had been but this felt worse. Because Ryou should have been his first priority - sweet, kind Ryou who loved him and still had his own nightmares of The Shadow Realm.

But he’d seen that tanned arm and all his sanity had left. He’d fled in a terror he thought he’d never feel again.

When the lack of Ryou had hit him, he’d immediately turned to head back. But the Millennium Rod had gleamed in the centre of his path and a floating Eye of Wedju had appeared in the darkness. He’d known there was no way back.

Not for him.

So he’d ran; he’d ran and told himself that he just had to escape first, leave the monster nipping at his heels behind and then he could find Ryou.

He had to.

The wall, which he’d made sure never to be away from, curved, and he felt air hit his front and left side. An open chamber, big if the cool air was any indication.

A light from up top, a hole in the sky, and sunlight shining down. If he could just get there . . .

The beam of light stretched down, a beacon of hope that pointed to a large dais. Upon it was a huge stone tablet, an animal, monster of some sort, carved into it and Malik knew what it was. A shadow monster, the predecessor of the current card version. Ishizu had mentioned it, once, when some memories had flickered back into existence after Yugi had told her of her past self. You used your Ba to call The Spirit Monsters that were taken from a soul.

There was only one place in Ancient Egypt that had housed these tablets, and though Malik could not see any further, he knew that there must be thousands of others – either whole or discarded in rubble – around him.

The Shrine of Wedju.

And though once, he would have marvelled at this - taken the time to enjoy the history and culture and magic of it all, how something that was thought to have been destroyed to rubble, was actually still hidden under layers of dirt - he couldn’t. Because he was going to die. If he stopped, he would die. Yet it would be dangerous to run straight ahead, so, with no small amount of fear and only the noises behind him getting closer, he let go of the wall.

He stepped forward, slowly, slowly, his vision accustoming now that there was light. His eyesight was much better than most because he had grown up in places like these, and he almost had the vision of a cat.

The shapes started to make sense, the stones, as he thought, surrounded him in the thousands, broken and whole, cut in half and gaps where none stood except for the dust at the ground. Steps materialised in front of him and Malik went down.

He didn’t know where to go, couldn’t see a way out. So he went towards the light, because light was good and the monster behind him was bad. Bad things lived and thrived in the shadows.

To the light, to the light.

Once he was there he would stop and think and plan how to get back to Ryou. He just, he had to get to safety first.

Down the steps, run across, crawl up the steps, reach the platform. There, light, a huge dais. To the light. To the light. Safety from darkness.

He almost made it, his fingertips touched a strand of sunlight, warm and safe and then the darkness curled around his ankle and pulled.

He hit the ground hard, rolling and kicking and screaming but shadows, thick and long, dark as the tunnels, held his feet, thighs, hips down. He shrieked, in terror, in a myriad of emotions that he couldn’t bottle up and swung out a fist.

He stopped, his arm stopped, but not by his own doing. Something was in his head, telling it not to move, to stay still.

_‘Obey me.’_

He tried to push it forward but nothing worked and the shadows were already holding his other arms and shoulder down. But his mouth was still his own.

“No.”

_‘Put your arm down.’_

His arm lowered.

“No, I won’t let you. You’re dead. You’re not real. Stop it, this is my body,” He refused but there were tears building in his eyes because there was no Dark Bakura for him to hide behind, no Anzu who had a piece of his soul - a safe port in a sea of night, and no one who knew where he was, trapped under all this dead Egyptian sand.

No Pharaoh to send the darkness away once more. It shouldn’t even be here. Last he had heard, The Pharaoh had seen him in the Valley of Lost Souls – The Pharaoh kindly pulling him aside and letting him know the whereabouts of his evil half.

The Valley wasn’t the Shadow Realm but it wasn’t a strange concept that the two were connected. It wasn’t even such a surprise that his darker half had been able to save himself from being stuck in the Shadow Realm – Marik had always had such a strong survival instinct, fuelled by spite and anger.

Malik no longer had that anger to fuel him, his desire for revenge shaken off in place of living in the moment, learning new things, enjoying life.

He had no Rishid here, Rishid who was safe in his job, secure with their sister who was probably pondering over a new Egyptian artefact or scroll at this very moment.

It turns out the only thing Malik had was the one thing that had never left him in all these years.

Malik only had fear. Fearfearfearfear.

A hand, tanned, with slight upraised veins, landed beside his head. It fingered the strands of his fringe and Malik tried to turn away, succeeding but only halfway. His mouth was moving, lips dry and Malik finally realised that the soft noises he heard were his own; soft little pleads of “no, no, no, please no. Not again.”

He wasn’t commanded to stop, his rebellion probably amusing the monster that had sprung from his own mind. He heard the _cling_ as The Rod was put down and he could see the being leaning over him.

Purple eyes glowing, Marik bent over and touched their noses together. He smiled as Malik stared back, unable to look away even as his eyes filled and tears teetered at the edge of his lids.

“No,” Malik said, once again, in soft, sweet denial. He’d been able to fight him last time but that had been with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, the expectation of The Pharaoh there to bolster his confidence.

And at that point, he’d been willing to die for it all, just to escape the ramifications of his actions. But Malik had things to live for now, people he loved and cared for and a life that he wanted to explore.

Marik grinned, mad but with some other scent to him, something else more than anger that had born him. He wasn’t quite the being that Malik knew.

That was shown when Marik pressed his lips to his, gaze unwavering. He held it for a moment and the moment was a second where Malik did not breathe. When he pulled back, with his commands still in Malik’s mind and those shadows holding him down, he spoke.

“It has been too long since I’ve tasted that beautiful, pained fear, hasn’t it, Main Personality.”

Malik did not speak, couldn’t. His breath had stopped in his chest, his arms tingling and the tears spilling down his cheeks.

Marik stuck his tongue out, the gold cuffs around his arms catching the sunlight and reflecting it. “I must say, it tastes even better than before.

*

**RYOU**

Ryou and Malik had been living together for 2 years. That was enough time to go through the ups and downs of living with a new person. From the death of his mother and sister, Ryou had been left alone, his father renting out an apartment with his own money (and lucky it was that he got paid so much) and pretty much leaving Ryou up to his own devices.

The incidents with the children had started from there. And eventually over time, when his father was forced to take phone calls from Principals and threatened by the police that he needed to appear so they could interview his son, he came to just quickly move Ryou from school to school every month.

That was the only time Ryou ever saw his father.

He hadn’t asked why, hadn’t seemed to want to know why all those children around his son fell into comas, but there was no proof of foul play and by moving Ryou so often, the incidents dwindled into none.

He’d spent so long on his own, or what he thought was on his own, that living with another had been a bit of a learning curve.

From the Pharaoh’s final duel with Yugi, Ryou had thought him and Malik would have no further contact, but a week later he had received an email from Malik (Yugi was happy to inform him when asked, that yes, he had been the one who had given Malik his email. And wasn’t it just so nice that they were all friends now? Namu hadn’t been a bad seed exactly, just a bit hurt and Malik wasn’t that persona anymore.)

The email had been short and not to the point.

A quick, hello, I’m Malik, do you remember me? And some general questions about his trip back to Japan with the final line saying that he felt it was his responsibility to check up on everyone. Seeing as how Malik and him hadn’t really interacted until after The Spirit of the Ring had (supposedly) been sent to the Shadow Realm, and they’d barely talked to each other during the whole Egypt trip, Ryou didn’t quite understand why Malik cared.

But it was nice that he had (even if it was only because of a mixture of guilt and duty), and it was only polite to respond so respond he did.

And somehow over that time, the conversations expanded, never quite devolving into their experiences but instead focusing more on the future and aspirations. Malik had been locked away for so long and knew all the knowledge of the Tomb Keepers and yet there was still so much he didn’t know.

Like an irrepressible hunger, he wanted to know everything and he thought Ryou was the best person to ask.

In those months and years after The Spirit, to have someone there, relying on him, was an odd sort of stabilising comfort that he couldn’t express in words.

Emails turned to other online social sites as technology expanded and even now they were friends on Facebook.

They talked on the phone, they sent each other pictures and cards and for all purposes, Malik had essentially become his best friend.

The years moved forward and Malik, who had been moving around England, America and Australia following the exhibitions his sister was curator for, had decided to move back to Japan to finish his studies.

Back to Domino city.

Honda and Otogi hadn’t been able to come to the airport, the business really starting to flourish as Honda took the reins on the company’s PR methods and Otogi hitting a particular creative streak that had resulted in him not leaving his creation room for 6 days. (Honda had called Ryou the night before, very distressed because he had just put a passed out Otogi back into his bed. Ryou had spent an hour soothing and consoling the man that yes, he was the right person for this job and no, he was not a bad friend for letting Otogi get himself into this state and yes, they did both agree that Otogi was an idiot and would be a mess without Honda.)

Kaiba was a no-go. Sometimes Yugi could get him to come to things and Joey was really starting to get a hang on manipulating Kaiba into a competitive rage that meant he did what Joey wanted but Ryou hardly talked to the man.

He was civil enough and they had had a nice conversation one time on the benefits of a home table-top game with tiny virtual pieces projected from under the board.

Joey had been at a tournament, his desire to take the King of Games title from Yugi giving him a fire to compete in every competition.

Anzu had been in America, dancing away and the ever-elusive Mai had probably been out breaking hearts and taking names (and money) so it had just been him and Yugi to pick up Malik.

He’d been a nervous wreck, and Yugi, perceptive as he always was, had got him into a debate about their university courses (he’d just decided to take on the Development of Society and Culture of West Asia elective and he and Yugi were sharing the same classes.) He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t realised the plane had arrived and Malik had disembarked until arms were around him, sliding down to hold him by the hips and a warm, bare shoulder was pressed against his nose.

He’d been so worried about how to act with Malik that he forgot what type of person Malik was. Well, the type of person that had come across through all those letters and phone calls.

(Later on, Yugi told Ryou that the Namu personality and Malik were actually pretty similar – Malik just liked to tease more.)

A brief pause, the tinkle of Yugi’s bright and happy laughter and he returned the hug with a force of emotion that surprised him.

They had been best friends since they were 17.

Time moved forward again and in their 2 years living together, they had finally talked about the past.

Malik had admitted that the true reason why he’d sent that first email was because he’d wanted to apologise - for the knife wound that would have left a scar if The Spirit hadn’t healed it.

For the fact that he knew Ryou had been an unwilling host and yet used him so easily.

That Marik had attempted to kill him and that it was all Malik’s fault for letting it get that bad. That Malik had been willing to let Slifer the Sky Dragon attack a bewildered Ryou. (And it had only been that then he’d learned The Spirit had swapped bodies to save him.)

And finally the years and the talks had culminated into this final adventure to Egypt. To face their pasts, their demons and to finally have closure.

Well Ryou was facing his past, and facing his very own demon and Malik wasn’t here like he said he would be.

Ryou was only alone, just like he’d been in the past. The Spirit’s fingers, a copy of his own but somehow longer and thinner, were stroking his cheek. A forefinger traced his bottom lip, red eyes following the path and a shuddering gasp left Ryou.

He wanted to speak, he wanted to move, but his mouth was dry and his legs weak and the five pointed scar on his chest (never healed, and what could be said that The Spirit had wanted to leave that reminder there) pulsating hot.

“No words Landlord? Are you not happy to see me?”

He was, in some part that wasn’t fear and disbelief. It was disgusting but he was. Happy to see him.

Two emotions had always warred within him, because yes he’d been alone and hated The Spirit, but no he hadn’t, because The Spirit had said they together alone were enough. Once he’d fully revealed himself, they had played games and The Spirit had even helped him with his homework sometimes. (If a man steals 350 coins from you, spends it at 3 separate stores owned by two merchants connected through marriage - then how many people do you have to kill?) You couldn’t not come to understand your demon when you spent every waking moment together.

It was Ryou that had gone to find the Millennium Ring after Honda had thrown it away, it had been Ryou who had taken it from Yugi’s room on Kaiba’s battleship.

Sometimes you get so used to your own monsters that you can’t imagine living without them.

But it was time for closure now.

And so Ryou said, “I am not your Landlord anymore.”

His bottom lip was pulled harshly and he followed it forward.

“You will always be my Landlord, little Ryou, whether I inhabit you or not.”

“Why are you here?” Ryou asked instead, his top lip touching The Spirit’s fingers as he was pulled so close their noses touched. He avoided replaying the sound of his name with The Spirit’s voice. The Spirit hardly ever called him by name.

“The question is what are you doing here? I thought I would wander for a few more millennia before another soul ever made it down here.”

“I fell.”

The Spirit started to laugh, and it was manic, the shadows playing on his face and when Ryou tried to pull back The Spirit let go of his lip and wrapped him up in his arms.

Hands hovering in the air, The Spirit’s shoulder digging into his cheek, the black coat he had worn to his death cold and musty, The Spirit cackled.

“Once again when I need him, here is my better half”

He was mad. Crazed.

“Fallen from grace and down to hell with the rest of us monsters.”

The Spirit ran palms up and down his sides, stroked his hips and Ryou stomped his foot down.

The cackles puttered like a dying car before starting up again, even as Ryou attempted to wriggle out from The Spirit’s arms. Doing so pulled at his battered arm however and he flinched with a startled gasp.

Then the palms moved high and up to that arm and with a brief push, a sudden warmth flooded him and his whole arm no longer hurt.

He took quick steps backwards, The Spirit deciding not to follow. Stretching out his dislocated-and-then-relocated-this-day arm, he felt no pain, only a few pins and needles. Uncertain he watched The Spirit warily. There had never been a give in this relationship, rarely even a give and take (The Spirit’s ideas of a present had _not_ been appreciated.)

And now his arm was healed.

Holding himself around his stomach, Ryou wondered if The Spirit had been here since his final defeat, stuck in the darkness for 5 years.

The Spirit, who had been laughing intermittently, finally stopped, and when his features relaxed, it reminded Ryou of the times of comfort and almost-friendship he and The Spirit had experienced in their time together.

He wanted to get rid of this feeling, and so said “I did not come back here for you.”

“Oh Ryou,” The Spirit said, again not following the path of his expected reactions, “don’t you understand yet?”

Ryou shook his head, and the tears finally spilled down his cheeks in a sudden wash that surprised him. He almost felt detached from the reality of what was happening.

What was it his psychologist said, ‘you have all the classic signs of stockholm syndrome and PTSD’. Not surprising, even if he’d never told her what exactly The Spirit had been (as if she’d believe him.)

“There is nothing to understand. You and I are no longer one.” He gripped himself tighter, trying to fight away the phantom touch on his hips and back. The bandage on his arm loosened and flittered to the floor.

If he’d looked down, he would’ve seen black scarabs devour the cloth.

“We will always be together,” The Spirit retorted.

“So you can torment me? Isolate me?” He wasn’t going to bring up the arm. Never trust a gift from a demon. His friends, frozen in tiny figures, their souls trapped, had supposedly been a gift.

“Time can’t keep us apart; the Gods cannot keep us apart.”

The Spirit, dusty and ashen but still as beautiful as he’d been in their final conversation, all those years ago, pulled his coat aside.

Skin drawn tight over his body, the ribcage showing in fine points like daggers through the skin, swirls of black Egyptian markings covered what visible skin Ryou could see. It was old, old Arabic but he could read it though the markings moved too fast around the symbols for him to make out everything. So many words and symbols that he could barely comprehend.

_Wander. Spirit. Purification. Punish._

Amidst all the swirling words, he thought he saw a black, bug-shape crawl itself up over The Spirit’s heart.

“And not even death can.”


	8. The historical quadrille

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryou and The Spirit argue.

**RYOU**

Spread out over the whole left side of The Spirit’s chest, was a detailed set of scales, on one side a feather and on the other side nothing. Even for those that hadn’t studied Egyptian history and lore, knowledge of the weighing of hearts had become pretty common through Western societies depictions of it in movies.

“It’s funny is it not Ryou?” And why did he have to keep saying his name? Ryou had, for so long, nursed a quiet indignation about his nickname, that by The Spirit avoiding saying his name, he was avoiding treating Ryou like a human being. Human beings had their own thoughts and feelings, vessels did not.

Maybe The Spirit had never wanted to see Ryou’s humanity - maybe he would’ve actually felt bad about taking Ryou’s own body and using it against him. Ryou had to believe there had been some good inside of him.

Was that just the Stockholm syndrome speaking? Ryou hoped he was at least past that kind of naivety.

“What is?”

“That I, who lasted so long on emotion, the need for revenge, would be found wanting of a heart.” The Spirit scoffed, pointed teeth bared. “It did not have to be a good heart, but even I thought there was something left. And yet Osiris could not judge me.”

“And you could not move on.”

“Ba-ding!” The Spirit exclaimed suddenly with a burst of energy, forefinger and thumb mocking the action of a gun going off. “You always were more perceptive than others gave you credit for.” For a moment he looked thoughtful, lids lowered as he regarded Ryou. “More perceptive than even I gave you credit for sometimes.”

Ryou wanted to run and subtly kept his body ready to move but that kindle of curiousity made him want to stay and hear more (always too curious for his own sanity).

But The Spirit was calling him by his name, touching him with no intention to hurt – even praising him. These were things that Ryou had always desired and yet, been rare to receive.

This couldn’t be his Spirit.

“So, have you been here all this time? Why not go out, into the world?”

The Spirit let his coat fall close. “Well, of course I was waiting for you.”

Ryou couldn’t contain his sound of disbelief, responding even as he glanced to the left at the next room and wondered how quickly he could make it there. “Lies, again. What is the point of hiding the truth from me at this point? Is there some other goal of yours, or is it just habit at this point?”

Quiet and un-reacting, The Spirit opened his stance, and Ryou knew he’d noticed what he’d been thinking. It seemed his thoughts were still written on his face where The Spirit was concerned. It’d been so long since he’d needed to hide like that anyway, no wonder he’d gotten rusty.

“I suppose it would be hard for you to believe me.” The flames, which should not have even been able to light, grew for a moment, highlighting the path of statues beside them. He couldn’t go back; he wouldn’t make it.

“You’re not thinking of running away again . . . are you Ryou?” The Spirit threatened. “You remember what happened at the church.”

And he did, he remembered running through the streets, the devil at his back that not even holy grounds could save him from.

“Didn’t I say it? Not even death can keep us apart,” The Spirit let out a long breath. “Not even your gods could.”

Ryou didn’t need any Gods to save him; he’d save himself.

Ryou ran.

*

He ran, grabbing a hanging torch with one lucky swipe and going into the next room. It was purely black, with only the torch held in his hand lighting the room.  Passing through the opening he saw only one path, plunging darkness on each side.

He quickly went forward, not fearing what was in front of him because behind him was what held all his terror. Under his feet were monsters, and with one of them he recognised that these could be the originals of the current card monsters. He’d heard Pegasus had gotten the idea from his Egypt trip and he knew that The Pharaoh and others had used them in the past but to see them now made stories and hearsay fact.

Here was the proof Yugi needed for his thesis on games in the Egyptian world. Though proving that the monsters could become real was a different matter entirely. Not even Kaiba believed them, and he had seen proof – he’d at least stopped calling them crazy when they it brought up, opting to remain silent and wait the conversation out (all the while tapping on his phone and scowling fiercely).

The Spirit ran like the dead, silent with the stale wind. With each step on the stone monsters, Ryou felt as if some energy infused him, analysing, judging and then leaving him be.

One of the monster stones he didn’t recognise, so it seemed that not every original tablet had been copied over to duelling cards.

Ryou reached the other side, a dais in front of him with some ceremonial alter in his way. He went around, but there were only walls in his way. He fumbled, pushing on the wall with his free hand and elbow. He pressed the hieroglyphs there but nothing happened. On either side were pillars but they were just smooth brown surfaces. Ryou turned back after a final smack of frustration, went up the two steps of the dais and felt on the altar for any lever or button or something. There was only a rectangle, type of ceramic plate with upraised sides, the resting place of some leftover thing that was long gone. This couldn’t be a dead end. It couldn’t. There had to be a way out.

The Spirit, hair slightly windswept, but looking none the worse for wear (then how he’d started), stepped up the two steps. The alter stood between them and after a beat Ryou bolted to the right. The ceramic plate was knocked to the ground and Ryou followed shortly.

He landed hard, The Spirit surprisingly cupping the back of his head so it didn’t collide with the floor and knock him out.

He sorts of wished it had.

The torch rolled away, but its flame kept strong. Ryou thrust his knee out, catching The Spirit in the stomach. Squirming and shaking his head back and forth, The Spirit grabbed both his wrists, straddling Ryou at the same time and using the pressure of his weight to keep Ryou down. His legs flailed uselessly as he fought for control, his arms pushing forward in a terrifying game of wrestling.

His fingers were long enough to scratch the top of The Spirits hands but it did nothing to deter him and finally, with one last grunt Ryou’s arms were slammed to the dirty floor.

He cried out with pain and Ryou felt The Spirit lean over him. His eyes had closed sometime during the attack and now, as the adrenaline rush left him and he started to still, he felt the pain in his back and hips from where The Spirit was tightly clenching his thighs to keep him pinned down.

He heard a noise over the loud pants that filled the room and realised it was both him and The Spirit.

He was mumbling, over and over again, “no, no, let me go, let me go.”

And in response The Spirit was saying “calm down Ryou, calm down.”

But it wasn’t calming him down because he didn’t know how to deal with The Spirit when he was saying such un-Spirit like things.

“For Ra’s sake Landlord, calm the fuck down,” The Spirit shouted finally and it was enough to break through Ryou’s freak out.

He stopped speaking, his legs stopped twitching. Ryou waited for what would happen next.

“Open your eyes.”

He did not want to.

“Open your eyes or I will make you.”

He did not.

Lips met his, dry and cold and with a frightened squeak his eyes opened. The Spirit had not closed his eyes and they stayed motionless for moment, until The Spirit moved slowly backwards.

“Do you feel better? At least this time I didn’t have to knock you out.”

He remembered walking home from the church but he’d been in the back of their mind, half sleeping, half unconscious and a tendril of The Spirit’s consciousness had pushed him back into his Spirit Room.

Time had flown so quickly then, bits and pieces and Ryou had been filled with this desire to create the World of Memories diorama. Half the time he knew it was not his own need and then The Spirit would obfuscate his mind and their desires would meld.

Part of it – as he knew now – had been his own need to see what The Spirit wanted from this, to know what the little houses in an old Egyptian setting meant.

He hadn’t known he’d been crafting the story that created The Spirit.

When he’d finally woken from that dream-likes state, they’d been at the museum already and Yugi and the others were preparing to enter the past to find The Pharaoh’s memories.

Ryou had been rejected from entering, and even then, he’d known they were sensing the soul of The Spirit, and so he’d felt thankful. If they couldn’t go in, then whatever The Spirit was planning wouldn’t come to fruition.

But that had been the whole plan, and once again, Ryou had just been a pawn.

“Ryou, Ryou.”

And then Ryou felt it, felt The Spirit roll his hips, the soft pants (so similar to what he’d worn years ago) rub against his crotch.

“What are you doi-” he was cut off by The Spirit bending down so close their eyelashes could touch.

“You will not leave me again,” was hissed. “We will be together forever.”

And Ryou nearly saw red. “Me?” He asked incredulously, not noticing as The Spirit startled and leant back, his grip reflexively tightening around Ryou’s wrists. “I wasn’t the one who left, you -you jerk! You were.”

After everything! The Spirit had the nerve to say that?

“You can’t just, come back like this and expect it to be okay. You ruined me,” he choked over the words. “You ruined me when you were alive, and you ruined me when you died.”

He’d tried to hide it, he still hid it, just as he knew Yugi did too.

“But I picked up the pieces and I put myself back together,” he spat out defiantly, his hands curling into fists. “You knew! You knew what would happen to me and yet you still went and did that stupid game anyway.

The Spirit snarled, “It wasn’t stupid, it was my life’s work, 3000 years of waiting.”

“And for what?” His voice cracked in its high pitch. “It wasn’t even The Pharaoh that did this to you. You were so angry that you were willing to take it out on anyone that you could and The Pharaoh was just the unlucky target. He knew nothing, and yet he had to sacrifice his life to wait around 3000 years to do some stupid battle with stupid cards and drag teenagers into a fight that didn’t concern them.”

He couldn’t keep the tears back anymore. He’d always been an angry crier. The problem with facing your past is that you can’t stay numb about it anymore

The Spirit raised his wrists and slammed them back down, his own body starting to vibrate with an anger that matched Ryou’s. “And what of my family? My village? A whole race of people nearly wiped out for some greedy man who wanted his brother’s throne.”

He was so close that the strands of his hair, longer than Ryou’s had ever been, tickled his neck.

“It happened and it was awful but I was not Akhenaden, neither were those children you trapped in The Shadow Realm.” The Spirit flinched then.

“You can’t just come back into my life. I moved past you. I have friends and family. I’m finally happy. Whatever you did to me, you didn’t hate me this much did you?” Ryou asked, pushing the words out past the tightness in his throat, past how hard it was to breathe with his nose clogging up.

“I never hated you Landlord.”

And for some strange reason, the next words weren’t as hard to get out.

“Then can’t you just leave me be. I missed you. You were horrible. You killed anyone that would’ve liked me and I know, I knew you were manipulating me. You wanted me just to rely on you didn’t you?”

His tears dripped down the sides of his nose and The Spirit followed their path.

“You don’t need anyone else. Your so-called group of friends couldn’t even tell when I was in possession of you.”

“You and I both know Honda suspected.”

The Spirit wrinkled his nose. “That one doesn’t count.”

“I need them,” Ryou pushed, the grip on his wrists loosening. “Because you died, and it felt like half of me was gone. I wasn’t a proper person anymore.” He could move his hands now and he did so, and if he’d been in a better state of mind, maybe he would’ve attacked but instead, because this new Spirit was strange and different, he chose to grab at The Spirit’s hands. “Did you want me to suffer? Did you want at least one person to remember you?”

His heart was in his mouth and he couldn’t stop crying. There wasn’t weakness in crying, Yugi had shown him that, but he wanted to see and not have his sight so blurred by the tears.

“Landlord . . . Ryou. Maybe I did. I wasn’t supposed to let you get so close but I . . .

“I was just meant to be a vessel right?” he laughed wetly. “Ha. You betrayed your own words. You wouldn’t call me by name, and yet after you cut me up, when we were in hospital, who was the one that comforted me? Who was the one that changed my bandages and made sure I had the pills I needed when I came to on the plane? Why did you want me to have no friends if that meant the only option left was you?”

He’d had a lot of time to think over The Spirit’s actions, a lot of time to try and come to terms with what had happened and realise how multi-faced The Spirit had actually been.

“That was just keeping our body healthy,” The Spirit defended, sounding not as harsh as he intended.

Ryou smiled a self-deprecating smile. “And what do you expect to happen now? It won’t be so easy just to take me over. It may not be the best but I filled in that hole you left with what I could. I don’t need you anymore.”

Ryou blinked the tears away and while The Spirit thought, he tried to see where the ceramic plate had fallen. Behind to his right was the torch though he could only see the brightness of its flame. To his left, within arm’s reach, was the container. He glanced away quickly before The Spirit noticed, a sharp pain in his head from the strain of stretching his peripheries.

 “You may say you don’t need me anymore, you may even believe it. But I knew you as a little child, crying at his family’s gravesite.”

The pain in his head sharpened and Ryou glared wetly.

The Spirit continued, nonchalant even though he knew how his words hurt, “. . . weak and wasting away. I gave you strength when you needed it. I loved you when your father did not.”

Ryou would’ve balked then, at how easily The Spirit had said love when Ryou had not dared to think of it before (and really, what evidence was there to prove it?) but he was too busy trying to shut away the memories of his father’s neglect.

“The souls of my people may finally have moved on but I’m still here. And that hole I left has been calling to me. It will always be a place I can slip into. It is as much for me as it is a part of you.”

In the space between his intake of breath and The Spirit letting go to move his hands somewhere else, Ryou reached out, twisting his upper body and grasped the platter. With the next motion and all his force, Ryou slammed the ceramic plate over The Spirit’s head.

The wide shocked eyes and slightly opened mouth would’ve been comical if not for the situation. The sensation of the ceramic under his hand shuddering with the impact was something he’d never wished to know.

The Spirit slumped over, head landing by his own, their ears brushing.

In the quiet, that moment was held infinite; held infinite until Ryou screamed his frustrations out.

He hugged The Spirit to him, feeling a body that he’d never truly felt before. It was pliant and blood started to fill in The Spirit’s ear.

Eventually the light started to dim and Ryou realised the torch was nearing its embers. He had to get up and go.

And so he did. He gently eased The Spirit off of him, resting him on his back. The face, white and ashy, with his brow red, almost looked peaceful.

Ryou got to work.

He picked up the torch, wiped his face of tears with the bottom of his shirt and searched the room more thoroughly. But no hidden door or hole was to be found. And so his only option was to go back and take the path that Malik had run down.

He hesitated for a moment at the thought of leaving The Spirit here. In the torch light he could see that his hands were stained with The Spirit’s blood.

Blood, blood on his hands. No, don’t think about it. Shut that feeling down.

Resolving himself, he left and didn’t look back.

(If he looked back he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to leave.)


	9. The evil counterparts story (1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malik and Marik argue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is two weeks late because my contract at work got extended (yay!), then I basically got kicked out of the place I was staying (not yay) and had to find/move into a new place within a week.  
> Also there were dust mites in my bed and the light was that blue-white light that gives me a headache so I had to get it changed.  
> Quite frankly I'm exhausted. ༼ ಥ﹏لಥ ༽  
> But I'm finally updating! Isn't that exciting.  
> This took me forever to edit the chapter because Malik's emotional state was hard for me to express as it's warring between guilt, fear and anger - and a lot of PTSD. I also couldn't find the right place to finish it so you lucky guys get this as a two-parter; I'll try to put the next chapter up on Sat/Sun.  
> To bed, now I go.˓˓( ॢ₎˔̈₍ ॢ)˒˒  
> <3

**MALIK**

Marik was biting at his neck.

Malik, still held immobile, lay on the dusty floor. So like his Mind Slaves, he felt hollowed out and waiting. The monster was back. It was here. Malik couldn’t fight him again.

Marik bit down harder and he jerked at the sharp sting.

He jerked. Wait. He’d moved on his own.

Marik went back to nipping and licking at the bite like a savage animal or something. Honestly, in all the nightmares Malik had of his darker half coming back – the embodiment of rage and hate hadn’t been chomping down on his neck like a dog’s chew toy but going straight to murder. The taste for blood was entirely Marik though – Malik found it all too dirty.

The black shadows still held themselves tight in their coils, pressing him to the floor. The steps to the dais, large and spaced, were not big enough for the both of them and so he was half held across two steps – legs splayed out, and away from the light.

It hurt, but when didn’t he hurt around Marik?

Malik twitched his fingers. His forefingers moved. Then the indexes. Pinkies. Thumbs. He slowly curled them balled his hands. He tried to blink the shock away but it wasn’t quite working.

He dug his nails into his palms, rubbed his fingers together and tried to focus on his breaths.

The silence in his mind receded; slowly, and following a twisted jagged path that nearly fell into panic.

Malik took another breath, and ignored Marik’s breath heating up his wet neck.

Remember, remember. Rishid had gone over the Clan’s teachings to further cement Ishizu’s practical help after Battle City. With Marik no longer vying for control, he’d been able to fully embrace his abilities.

The private psychologist had worked wonders as well, even if Malik preferred to pass on his knowledge to Ryou.

_You are whole, you are enough._

Control your emotions, you control your body. Control your body, you can control your emotions.

Malik stretched back, giving more of his neck to Marik (what was he, a fucking vampire?) but needing to see how far away from the light he was. He didn’t know why, what it was in his mind that was telling him this: the biological need to be in warm sun or the primitive part of his brain that said the light scared away the big bad monster – but he knew that Marik wouldn’t be able to go into the light.

He just-

He stretched.

Had to –

Fingers extended out.

-Get there.

He felt hope, and he was thrown full into the present, leaving that quiet dissonance behind.

The warmth of the sun touched the pads of his fingers but his growing jubilance was crushed as Marik growled and yanked him down.

Malik swore and screeched and felt the visceral relief of screaming out his terror. He tried to claw at Marik, kick and wriggle and get away.

Marik turned him sideways so they could lie flat on one step and threw himself bodily on Malik.

“Why? Why are you here?”

Marik’s brown skin had darkened under the dust, trickles of it getting into Malik’s mouth and eyes as he fought. He blinked them out furiously and hit his elbow against Marik’s cheek.

Marik lifted Malik up and then smashed him firmly against the stone.

His breath left in a violent exhale and Malik gasped weakly.

His arm was grasped, a cut appearing on the forearm. Marik, keeping his gaze locked with Malik, licked the blood off. His tongue was nearly forked and seemed to get under the skin. Marik’s eyes bulged and he clicked his tongue in self-satisfaction.

“I’ve got the taste of you now, you won’t be able to escape me again.”

Malik pulled at Marik’s grasp, choking on a sob at the tenderness of his chest. He’d like to go back to numb-ville now please.

Marik licked his lips and sniffed like a connoisseur before tasting a fine wine.

Malik couldn’t remember Marik being able to scent blood when he’d had control – maybe it was something he’d learned in the Valley of Lost Souls.

His other personality was so animalistic that he’d even learnt the traits of animals. Malik didn’t see how that could have come from him.

‘Y _ou have to accept that everything Marik was came from you. Once you have fully integrated those feelings back into your self-identity, you can fully start to heal.’_

He’d accepted it, he had. But this was learned after they separated.

This thing in front of him was a new type of monster.   

“I couldn’t wait to be rid of you, but in the end you thwarted me. How strange that as I wandered between worlds, hating and cursing you, that I also wanted you back,” Marik interrupted Malik’s ruminations.

His voice made Malik think of dark nights hiding under his covers and a sweet sickly voice murmering in his head.

That voice saying _‘I will take care of you. They’ve all failed. Rely on me and we shall break these cursed chains and take the world for our own.’_

It stirred an old childhood yearning in him that was masked with hatred and fear.

And the appropriate amount of denial. He’d told his psychologist that at least it was progress if he recognised it was denial, right?

“I don’t need you,” Malik spat out, his head unconsciously shaking side to side, the end of his hair tickling Marik’s hands.

“Yes you do.”

Marik’s shirt was his own from Battle City, the purple edges tattered and torn. The smell of it was like the older tunnels of their home even though Marik couldn’t possibly have made it there from here.

“I wanted you back,” Marik repeated the lie. Malik didn’t believe him.

“You tried to kill me.” If he couldn’t get to the light then he had to find some other way to get out of this situation. There had to be something. And what of poor Ryou? His friend, his companion. Malik felt a terrible guilt rise up in him. He’d been the one to push for this, to show both himself and Ryou that they could lay their demons (it seemed now literally) to rest.

He hadn’t expected that they would actually be down here.

He hadn’t expected in all the panic for them to get separated.

Marik cocked his head, observing him with the same stillness that smooths over the vibrating violence of a hyena. “I wanted you gone cause you wouldn’t accept me.”

Malik rejected what he was saying. “You weren’t supposed to exist, you’re a monster.”

But who was really the monster?

It was only his own hunger for power and freedom that had made him fight Marik so hard. It wasn’t like they had had a difference in opinion about murder or death.

He understood his way of thinking, his near racism in valuing Egyptians – his clan – over others was a learned ideology from his father. He hadn’t really recognised it till after and it’s hard to fight an ingrained belief with what logic’s telling you.

He fought everyday – for people like Ryou that were a thousand times better than him.

After all, it was Malik who had been willing to leave his family behind, to take innocents as Mind Slaves first. He had had to accept that the evil, the murdering hatred in Marik had manifested from his own desires.

He’d accepted that. Mostly. And now he was better than it.

He had to tell himself that; he had to believe it. How could he stay friends with Yugi and Ryou without believing that there was something good in him?

How many years did you ask for forgiveness until you believed you were?

“I was you but I changed, now I have my own wants,” Marik said. The triangles of light highlighted the blood on his lips. “I ate,” he tasted the word. “And I gorged and those souls filled me up.”

No. He hadn’t – he hadn’t really eaten all the Lost Souls? Had he?

“Enough that I could last without you.”

It was a climax, but Malik refused to stay around. During the others speech, Malik’s mind had been at a high-speed. Yes, the panic and fear was still there, the remnants of a numb mind still dripping like uneven paint to dry in large clumps -  but he was smart. He always had been.

You couldn’t be in another country illegally, at the age of 16, without being at least a little bit intelligent.

He’d always been quick, and he’d always loved learning. And under the hot Egyptian sand the only way to learn was to read, to watch.

To observe.

Find the right moment.

And attack.

And Marik had forgotten The Rod. Such a silly thing to forget, but maybe its power had laid dormant down here, unable to work without a complete master. For all that Marik was implying he was his own being now, it had been Malik to learn the ways of The Rod.

It was his weapon, not Marik’s.

Malik’s foot, wrapped in the most high-fashion sandals, touched The Rod and he felt a bolt of power run through him.

The shadow tendrils exploded into light, blinding them both.

Malik kicked at Marik, rolling out from underneath him.

The Rod _clang clang clanged_ down the steps and Malik had to choose.

If he’d thought about it more - the insanity, the call of power - it might have made him choose The Rod but everything else in him screamed _‘Light! Light!’_

And so he went for the light.

Rays of warmth touched his face, not gentle but fierce as Ra welcomed Malik into the sun’s protection.

He felt as the darkness was blown away from the tiny spots it had crept to, fleeing the crevices of his clothes and body. His hair flushed back from his face like wind being cut off by a sheer cliff.

He was safe.

Or so he thought.

Even into the light, his arm, flung back mid-sprint, was still out of Ra’s territory. And Marik grabbed onto it.

He was yanked to a halt, twisting around and falling to his knees, body enclosed in the safety of the dias but from elbow out, his right arm, wounded and still bleeding, was cut by the barrier of light and dark.

A mirrored picture, except he wasn’t completely all on his side. The picture wasn’t cut straight down the middle.  

He always seemed to fall into darkness even when the light beckoned at his back.

Malik followed the path of his arm down to his wrist, trapped in the brown and stronger fingers of Marik; Marik whose teeth were bared and expression fierce. His purple eyes glinted like sharp amethysts and they both knew Malik would not be able to move again.

Marik never had been just a mere copy. The physical power had always been stacked a little too heavily on his side.

Blood dripped from his arm, too thick for the cut and splattered the floor between them. A few more drops and if Malik would have looked down, he would have thought the blood pattern to be oddly reminiscent of a familiar Egyptian beetle.

But instead he just shook (with anger, pain, fear) as Marik held tight. Those long fingers curled around his arm and into his skin and Malik felt goosebumps on his skin.

 “Let go, let go.”

But Marik didn’t let go.

“Let go of me, you monster!” Malik’s voiced reached a new pitch, breaking at the end and leaving him panting. But Marik, oddly watchful, seemingly patient Marik regarded him as he lay there with chest heaving.

“I won’t let go of you Malik, I’m never going let go again.” 

*

**MALIK**

And so they argued.

Time passed and the longer it went on the angrier Malik became.

“You were too weak for the world. I kept you safe inside of us. At the back of my head but you had to go off with that stupid bitch and thieving spirit and try to fight me.”

“You weren’t doing it for me. You just wanted to control me,” Malik snarled back,

They were holding hands now, Marik having entwined their fingers though Malik had resisted all the way.

This back and forth arguing almost took him back to earlier days, when they debated over Rishid and killing him.

“And maybe I did,” Marik’s voice was always like blood on gravel, slick and wet with a rocky crunch underneath. It made him want to curl on the ground and hold his stomach. Left unchecked, he could become this evil too.

What was he talking about? He _had_ become this evil. That’s why the guilt ate at him alive – all his regrets and mistakes were physically embodied in being in front of him.

“So you could feel what I felt. To be stuck inside and ignored. I did everything for us and you hated me for it. I was born from rage and pain, and yet you blamed me for it when it was your own feelings that made me this way!”

Malik could feel his wrist tendons overexert, tender from the constant stretch of before. His blood had mostly dried on his skin and he thought the blood staining the dais was an odd splatter pattern – like when you look at clouds and can see a bug or something in it.

Malik’s arm shook, Marik’s too. At least both of them were aching from the tug-of-war fight from before; Malik having gotten the light almost to his wrist before he had been nearly yanked into the blackness up to the elbow.

Fear was not always a cold, clammy thing. Sometimes it was the dust on your tongue and the burning of every part of your body.

After that they’d settled on the original position and though they both were poised and ready for the other to start the tug-of-war again, for now they were still.

“But then they tried to destroy our Rod and I couldn’t stay in that world of wandering souls.”

“The Rod isn’t yours.”

It felt weird to argue while Malik had crossed legs like a school-yard kid and Marik was legs spread, back curved like the sullen bully.

Marik continued - “So I came out and I got it but the world was twisted and time was wrong and then it exploded and when I woke up I was here, stuck in this underground maze of death just like when we were children. But with no Father to kill or way to escape.”

Malik focused on his bitter, simmering rage and ignored that tiny part of him that had noticed the child-like quality of Marik’s tone. How had he never noticed that before?

He’d grown up but Marik was still the evil little resentful child part of him.

“And I wandered and I wandered and then I met _him._ ” Marik’s face was like a scrunched up ferret, the veins diminished and his face rounding out.

“ . . . Him who?” Malik had to ask.

Laughter.

“You know. White hair, striped t-shirt, protected that weak little vessel of his when he should’ve got a new one.”

Malik felt the hiss on his breath, his shoulders hiking up like an Egyptian cat; that was how they reacted to mention of the dead.

“Don’t you dare talk about Ryou like that.”

Curious, head cocked, “Ryou? Is that his name?”

Malik supposed the hatred was less directed at Marik and more himself, because he hadn’t bothered to learn Ryou’s name during Battle City, or at least, he had cast it out of his mind quickly. Why focus on someone that wasn’t The Pharaoh? Especially someone who couldn’t even be in control of their own body. (How ironic things turned out. That the person he thought weak was now his constant support, that The Spirit he thought as vile as his own, saved the host whereas Marik had been content to throw him away.)

“Why so defensive Main Personality?” Marik continued, thumb stroking circles on Malik’s skin and over the dried blood. He couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not. He didn’t like the little nickname either. “Weren’t you on the other side, telling that pesky Bakura to just let Ryou die?”

“Shut up. What do you know? It’s none of your business.”

“Business? Everything about you is my business.”

Malik’s leg, bobbing as it had been, slowed to a stop as what Marik had said filtered in.

“Bakura. You said Bakura . . . you mean the thief?” He’d been so worked up over Ryou that he’d glossed over all the words.

“Is there another?” Marik said but his purple eyes were lidded and lips set in a wide smirk.

 “He’s . . . he’s here. Oh god, Ryou.” What had he done? He never should have brought Ryou here.

“I would assume he’s already found his little one. I would too quickly if I was him, such a tasty soul can’t be left alone,” Marik hammered in on the point, a shark scenting blood.

“Don’t you touch him,” Malik yanked at his arm then, breaking their silent code. “Ryou has had enough of evil spirits to last him a lifetime.”

Marik didn’t let him escape, holding onto Malik with both hands now.

“Oh, am I an evil spirit? I suppose now, with the way I’ve . . .” he pondered over the world, “evolved. You could say I am.”

Malik had uncrossed his legs, planted them just as Marik had done, playing tug-of-war with his limb. The black slowly crept up his arm, almost like a snake’s mouth – open and ready to eat. At this rate, it would come out of the socket.

“Then what are you doing here with me?” Malik screeched, biting his lip afterwards to hold in a cry of pain.

“Well, you killed me didn’t you? It’s only fair that I would see justice.”

“Justice?” Incredulous laughter. “You were trying to kill me! And this was my body first. I never needed you.”

“Lies, lies, lies!” Marik growled out, curling a palm around Malik’s bent elbow. He pressed in close to the stream of light, nose steaming smoke. “You’d still be a carving bitch for Father if I hadn’t of saved us.”

“Rishid would’ve saved me, he –”

“He was outside when Father was cutting into us and didn’t do a thing.”

Too close, too close. Marik pressed in, his clothes starting to pop and sizzle. Malik shook his head in denial. Because talking about this to his psychologist and Ryou was in a safe, loving environment. Fighting with Marik about their childhood abuse was not safe at all.

“He tried. He tried,” Malik couldn’t see the room anymore, eyes squeezed shut. “I would’ve saved myself.”

The grip on his elbow dragged his torso forward, bending his face towards the divide.

“You did,” Marik cooed. “I was you, and I saved us.”

Malik had opened his eyes at some point. They were so close their noses touched.

“You killed Father. No matter what, it wasn’t right.”

“And how many Rare Hunters did you sacrifice?” Marik mocked, sneering at the hypocrisy; he was always able to peel back Malik’s lies and seeing the dirty truth of him. “You were willing to throw their lives away as long as you got closer to the Pharaoh.”

And he had - he had taken the minds of the ones who didn’t listen, thrown away the bodies of those who’d failed. It was only through magic that he wasn’t in jail right now.

And it was his own selfishness that refused to let him turn himself in. Even if he wanted redemption, Malik knew he could never return to a cage.

“I know . . . I know I did bad things. And I repent for them every day of my life.”

That seemed to surprise Marik.

“Ha,” he cackled after a moment. “I thought at first you were the same, but you really have changed.”

“Time does that. You seem to have just gotten more and more insane,” Malik snarled, wanting to rip his arm away. He was tired, so very tired of this all.

Marik went deadly silent, the tip of his nose nearing a blackened thing. Malik could smell the burning flesh and his nose started to tingle with a burn too.

“You want to see insane?”

Before he had a chance to react, Marik leant back and bit his own hand. Blood poured over, and Marik unclenched his jaw with a wet smack. A crescent of teeth holes, red little squares were left.

And in a quick motion, Marik was holding his palm around Malik’s mouth, choking him on the blood.

Malik reared back, clawing one-handedly at the bloody limb suffocating him.

“Drink it,” Marik demanded, even as the hair on his arm burnt off and his skin started to peel in the sunlight.

And he yanked at Malik’s elbow and brought him over to the dark.

 

 


	10. The evil counterparts story (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into Malik's spirit.

  **MALIK**

They tussled, Malik shrieking and screaming all the while. His legs kicked out, his stomach muscles working until his belly went soft as he lost air. His nose was blocked and eventually, he had to breathe.

A deep breath and he was coughing on the blood, body spasming. Marik retreated for a moment, to let him catch his breath, but then the blood was being forced into his mouth by two fingers.

Between Marik’s legs, body held so tight that he couldn’t remember what it was to be free, Malik could only cry and curse as Marik coated his teeth and tongue with blood.

A hand grazed the side of his stomach, touching the edges of the ruins of his back and power flared into it. He felt it zigzag along all the cuts his father made and the tendons in his muscles strained as he screamed.

His throat convulsed and he bit down with teeth reflexively. He could feel his teeth sink in, edge at the hardness of bone but Marik only continued to rock them. More blood poured into his mouth, the taste of raw meat and smell overwhelming him.

He was going to throw up.

Maybe Marik heard it, in some old link they had, because he pulled back his fingers – thick, long, rounded things that were twice the size of his. Malik coughed, eyes already streaming and sinus aching. He caught himself on the edge of a sob. The wet fingers were still on him though, pressed against his bottom lip.

Malik hiccupped over whimper, staring dumbly at the invisible roof as he reeled at unexpected violence.

You’d think he’d be used to the brutality of his life by now.

“I had to force you,” Marik said nonchalantly as if he was just stating an agreement they’d made. “I’ve always had to. You won’t accept me. Even when I was just a shadow in your mind, a lingering thought on the bed, you tried to ignore me.”

Lips touched his forehead and words whispered into his ear, “But I can touch you now, with my own hands. I was inside you and now I am inside you once again.”

Malik missed Ryou, he missed him so fiercely. He’d been strong once against Marik but obviously once was enough. This Marik, this spirit wandering down here, it wasn’t the Marik he knew away.

He just couldn’t seem to kill this part of himself, and now it wasn’t even him anymore.

“I thought I was stronger without you but I was wrong.”

Malik felt a touch inside of him, deep into his soul where there was only an infinite bubble of blackness and a tiny camp in the middle. The flame of the firepit, which usually flared so bright had dimmed – it’s circle of light, small.

Something prowled outside the circle of fire, stalking, hunting; trying to get in.

The energy in his back was still there but just a warm throb now and Malik felt the curve of a smile against his temple.

“Doesn’t that feel better?”

Blood dripped from his trembling lips and Marik kept rubbing at it. He brushed fingers through Malik’s dirty, sweaty hair and after a while it started to soothe him. His thoughts floated by in a foggy haze and he was sitting at the little camp in his soul, tending to the fire.

He felt a firm brush through his hair and it felt nice, so he turned into it. Mindless. Following instinct.

He moved the coals around, trying to get the flames to rise hgher but he wasn’t quite sure why he wanted that. He looked out into the darkness, but then he was looking past Marik’s arm and seeing a white whisp of something. It was enough for the camp fire to perk, the something in the shadows retreating with a growl.

He didn’t . . . he didn’t quite know where he was, inside or out, body or spirit.

Labyrinth or camp.

All he could feel was skin on skin and meat in his mouth, blood on his tongue.

Death and regret.

 _“Rebirth,”_ echoed from behind him but when he turned to look there was nothing there.

Something pulsed between him and Marik, and Malik felt the warm heat of something long and metal beneath his fingers.

The white wisp of something moved closer but Marik touched the nape of his neck and unthinkingly Malik rolled in the crook of Marik’s arms. They stared into each other’s eyes, Marik fighting for domination as he’d done since the beginning but with a soft caress on the cheek. The purple of his eyes had flames behind them.

They flickered down to Malik’s lips.

It was a stray thought to refuse but gone before it could materialise anyway.

The creature outside the campfire whined like a dog, begging for some warmth. At the hearth inside his soul, Malik crouched, paused in his tending.

In the real world that pale wisp grew closer, it was almost as if it had eyes . . .

The creature outside his campfire was so cold and it just wanted to be loved. It wanted to feel the sun’s rays, to be with the world. It was so tired of being angry all the time. It wanted to feel something different, it knew it could.

Malik at his hearth could understand. Standing he moved out from the fire, even as its flames almost seemed to flicker in motions to beckon him back. He blinked and he wasn’t sure if the flames purple or red.

So sad, so cold.

_So angry._

Malik, in his soul, reached into the curtain of darkness and felt the lick of an abandoned puppy.

Malik, in his body, parted his lips and opened his mouth to Marik’s – pliant for whatever Marik planned to do.

The first hit rippled through Marik’s body and into his own.

The second merely stunned him and with an angry bellow, Marik turned to attack. Malik, ripped out of the depths of his soul and back into his real body, grabbed at Marik’s back instinctively. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to hold Marik back or not but he had fistfuls of his darker half’s coat. Marik was hit a second time around the temple and with a full body shudder went limp.

Barely able to breathe, feeling all Marik’s dead heavy weight on him, Malik scrambled out from underneath. He pushed Marik onto his back and turned to his saviour.

A shard of light reflected through hair created a translucent halo; though some strands bled ruby-red. Eyes wide but fierce from the violence, Ryou held the golden, now bloody Rod in his hands like some King’s weapon. It almost seemed alive and thriving in his hands and Malik felt a sense of awe at his magnificence.

They stared at each other over Marik’s unmoving body until Ryou dropped The Rod and threw himself bodily at Malik. Malik clung back, wrapping himself tight around Ryou. He wasn’t sure if it was him or Ryou that was trembling - maybe it was them both, but, too soon, Malik pulled back and grabbed Ryou by the face. He checked him for signs of bruising but found it difficult to see under the blood stains (not wet like the ones that covered him, they’d had time to dry.)

“What happened? Why is there blood?” Absently he noticed that Ryou’s arm was no longer in a cast but he was too busy rubbing at the dried blood and scanning the rest of his body for wounds.

“It’s not mine. It’s not my blood Malik,” Ryou said but Malik didn’t believe him until he’d touch everywhere.

Then, after staring into Ryou’s face again, he pulled him closed, resting their foreheads together and just breathing.

“Ryou, Ryou,” he repeated in an wash of relief, again and again. All his fault, and yet Ryou had been the one to save him.

“Malik,” Ryou breathed back. “It’s okay, I’m here now.”

He’d left him, he’d left him behind. Malik choked on his words, couldn’t get them out.

But that was okay, he didn’t need to get them out, not right now.

He just needed to hold his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The babies are back together \\( ﾟヮﾟ)/


	11. The pyramid’s croquet ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The light is dangerous.

  **MALIK**

 “Come, let’s go, there must be another path out of here,” Malik said, lightly tugging Ryou away from where he was staring at Marik’s unconscious form.

“Ryou?” Malik repeated, wanting Ryou to just hurry and move.

He was staring at the circle of light that shone down from the roof. Its range had gotten bigger, the tip of Marik’s bare foot ghosting the divide.

“What are you thinking?” If no one asked then Ryou could stay in his head for days, a leftover remnant of having no family and only a leech inside of you to talk to.

“It fell down here.”

“What did?”

Ryou clasped onto Malik with a shaking strength. “The Millennium Items.”

Malik had been there for it, relinquishing The Rod to The Pharaoh and completing the prophecy that had been handed down through the ages. He had been relieved of his burden.

But this was not the Shrine of the Millennium Stone, with the Eye of Wadjet representing the doorway to the afterlife and the Millennium Stone waiting for the Millennium Items to be set into it. That place had cracked into thousands of rock shards and fallen into darkness.

“But this has to be The Shrine of Wedju; it’s a completely different place”

Now it was Ryou’s turn to tug at their held hands, an innocent meeting of hands if not for the blood that squelched between their cupped palms. He walked them up to the podium, (away from where Marik’s body had rolled to the bottom of the steps) both of them blinking at the white brightness that cast over them as if it was cleansing the death and decay from their souls.

It cast away all doubts and fears and they cuddled in close to each other. It smelt of wet fresh grass and Malik remembered the first time he’d left the tunnels, made his way to a river bank and breathed it in. Petrichor, it was called, the definition in one of the few dictionaries they’d had down in the dark.

Rishid had told him his mother had loved the smell too. Ishizu had bopped his nose and said _‘Have I not always said you have mother’s nose?_ ’

“Raw cookies,” Ryou said in consternation. “It smells like raw cookies,” he continued, “and . . . incense? And also wood chippings.”

It was like a bucket of water dousing him, leaving him cold and aware. The white light seemed to beat at him with a ferocious intensity and still Ryou moved them forward. What Malik had seen as a beacon of hope now made him want to run in the other direction.

Marik had been walking around with the Millennium Rod but to all accounts (actual been-there, saw-it, eyewitness, and not-just-him accounts,) the Millennium Items had been destroyed. Those vile symbols of death were gone.

Malik, still hating most of his clan but having been forced to visit each group of them and tell them the Pharaoh’s Legacy had been finished, had never told them the true origin of the items. That evil was dead and the generations of clan members had already suffered enough for it. Ryou said Bakura had suffered enough for it. (He had to remember the suffering even as his mind longed for the comfort of The Rod lying there on the floor, the temptation to use it to trace the inner parts of Ryou that he dared not show; a phantom ache for something he couldn’t get back.)

Now that he was aware, the light wasn’t so cleansing, instead causing a brief headache behind his eyes. When he blinked the spots clear they were staring at a broken square slab all glued back together.

The features were barely recognisable, but the shape of each item was still clearly impressed upon the slab. The decorations and figures were smudged and indefinable, the hands of the figures worn flat.

Every spot was empty; all except the Millennium Ring.

A gift from his father, wherever Ryou went, the Ring had followed. Late one night, Ryou drinking tea and curled into the couch beside him, they had talked. Ryou told him what he already knew – that they felt that same connection, as if their Millennium Items had always been destined to fall into their hands. And what did it say that something born from such evil seemed only to work for them?

His psychologist would say good can come from tragedy and tragedy can come from good. It is what you make of it that matters. But his psychologist wasn’t the one here right now so and she wasn’t the one that had to deal with this.

They both bared the scars of being a wearer of a Millennium Item, mental –and in Ryou’s case- physical reminders that would never leave them.

How can you really forget something that almost becomes an extra limb, an extension of your soul?

Trembling fingers reached out, the look on Ryou’s face hypnotised. Even after so many years down here, the points of the Ring were barely rusted and gold gleam not bronzed at all.

With a s _cuttle_ the points of the Ring jingled and pointed their ends directly at Ryou.

Malik grabbed Ryou by the hair, burying the man’s unblinking eyes into the crook of his shoulder. Ryou shuddered in his arms and Malik physically put his body between Ryou and the stone slab, all the while whispering, “You can’t, you can’t.”

Ryou had said once, that The Spirit must have called him Landlord because Ryou kept inviting him back, unable or unwilling to reject the call of The Ring. The Spirit’s acts of ‘friendship’ had been his chosen form of rent, making sure the two were never separated.

They’d both had their demons use their insecurities and weaknesses. But now they were each stronger than that; they had each other at the very least.

In the circle of light they held each other and Malik pressed kisses to his friend’s hair, squeezing his eyes shut as he saw The Rod glow in conjunction with The Ring.

 _Scuttle_ ; _scuttle_ , like a metal spider crawling their way. Always spinning its web around Ryou.

 _Clunk_ , _clunk,_ the hollow beat as The Rod rolled forward. It took the individuality of its victims and dulled the heart of its wearer. His heart surely felt dulled, like metal that had been taking a beat for too long a time.

The hole from the roof seemed to expand and Malik remembered the day The Pharaoh walked into the afterlife.

He could almost hear him even now . . .

“Leave, we have to leave.”

Ryou whined high in his throat and Malik could still taste blood in his mouth –

_Clunk, clunk._

Was The Pharaoh yelling? Wait, a second voice, a voice from so long ago, saying, _“He is my son . . . “_

_“It is not his time.”_

_“I have waited long enough.”_

Ryou cried out, “Amane,” and Malik acted.

Had to protect, had to keep him safe. The ripped edges of his psyche ached to knit close but Malik focused on Ryou, focused until the light bled out of his vision and Ryou’s upturned face, eyes tearing, was what he could see. A face he adored. A person he loved.

His best friend.

Ryou fought him, unseeing but Malik, with an enraged yell to block out the voices, wrapped arms around Ryou’s waist and carried him down the stairs; step by aching step until they were back in the shadows of the dilapidated shrine.

And then further, until they were out of the room, bypassing Marik’s still unconscious form.

Ryou twisted and wriggled, arms and elbows pushing at him until he got them far enough away that the light faded and they were back in the dark.

Once they were there Ryou calmed down and came back to himself with a gasp.

“I – I thought she was there, my sister, talking to me.”

“I know, I thought –” Malik started, but then decided he didn’t want Ryou to think he actually had a chance of talking with his sister. Not here, not now, maybe once they were out but Amane’s death had aged like wine in that Ryou could uncork the bottle no matter how many years had passed and the pain was still there, just a mellowed out version. Malik just didn’t trust that Ryou wouldn’t go back and try to throw himself into that blinding light.

It was strange, this place, almost as if time was in a standstill, all of these places and things converging into one point. What other reason could there be for something that was meant to be gone still existing? (Though the pieces put back together showed The Millennium Stone _had_ in fact, once been broken.)

“I need to go back and get the torch you dropped,” Malik said, having seen the still-burning torch when he’d dragged Ryou out of that place. He hadn’t been able to stop, had only thought to get them as far away as quick as possible (and wasn’t it funny that now the dark was the safe island in this storm of madness.)

He kneeled and carded his fingers through Ryou’s hair. “I know –” he started but didn’t know where to go with it, and settled on, “just don’t move, okay?”

He waited until he got the quiet, mumbled, “okay” from Ryou before he stood up. The torch was dropped a bit in front of Marik, the edges of the bright light tickling at its flame.

Malik kept his eyes focused on the torch, keeping the rest of his senses divided between that and Marik.

He adamantly ignored any soft whispers that came from the light.

_‘My sweet child, I have faith in you. Do your best.’_

He didn’t need to recognise the voice to understand who it was.

_‘I want to see you, but it’s not time yet.’_

He choked on a sob and picked up the torch; the wooden part seemed a cold hollow thing in his hands.

_‘You are your own light.’_

He ran backwards to Ryou as quick as he could, curling around the corner and he didn’t mean to, didn’t intend to, but he looked up. He looked up and into that light.

A woman, clothed in white flowing cloth, two locks of hair wrapped in golden bands, was shimmering in the light. She smiled, her copper eyes warm with a kindness that was just as pure as his sister’s.

His lips worked around her name and then Ryou was there, pulling at his arm and his grip slipping over Malik’s remaining bangle, his pallor returned and seeming like he’d finished crying hours ago.

His mother shook her head but it was Ishizu’s voice that said, _‘Malik, go.’_

And for once, he listened to his family, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the finale! (I think ahaha) Then the epilogue weee~  
> I still wonder if anybody has gotten where I get the titles from (σﾟ∀ﾟ)σ


	12. Death and Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malik and Ryou want to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That moment when you make a character say something so bitchy and out of line but it's absolutely so savage that you love it.  
> In other words, I love Ryou Bakura and the endlessly possibilities for him to be on point with his insults.

**RYOU**

The water trickled from Malik’s hand and onto Ryou’s chin, a few drops making it into his mouth. Malik went to do it again but Ryou waved him off, saying “I can do it myself.”

He’d been a bit obstinate, wanting to keep running but Malik had been right and they should really drink while they had the chance.

They’d made it back to the fork they’d separated at but Ryou had said his way was no safer then Malik’s; both had a very dangerous entity lying unconscious at the end.

So they’d walked backwards, heading towards where Malik had wrapped up Ryou’s arm. The path had only one other turn off so they’d had no choice but to take it.

It had come to another cavern with a small pool of water. Malik had tested it, his tongue more adept as tasting for the growth of bacteria and algae (the water looked clear though and tasted surprisingly fresh.) Malik had surmised it must have come in from the outside, but there was no obvious opening and there was no way they could hold their breath for the time it would take – even if they could fit.

Ryou squatted by the water’s edge, cupping handfuls of water into his mouth, and then set to work cleaning the blood. 

His arm was completely healed, the injury feeling as if it had happened weeks ago instead of only hours.

At least he thought it was hours, the dark seeming to both draw out and shrink the concept of time, like when he’d finally finished crying, his heart aching at the trilling tune of his sister’s laughter only to find that Malik was gone.

He’d waited; wiping his face, uncurling himself from the ball he’d been in and Malik hadn’t come back. He said he’d come right back.

But the seconds waiting felt like minutes, and minutes turned into hours and Ryou, nearly out of his mind with worry, had gotten up to go find Malik.

Ryou took another handful of water, his throat parched and his thoughts whirring. The air was still but with a tense sort of readiness, clouded by both his and Malik’s recent experiences. Ryou noted that Malik had stopped drinking at some point. He was motionless, unseeing with droplets of water _plop plop_ plopping into the water.

Yugi had said, that when it really mattered, Ryou had a way with words. The Spirit had stabbed the spire of a diorama game through his palm because Ryou wouldn’t hold his tongue, but he’d never felt like he was particularly inspiring, or capable of helping others. That didn’t mean he didn’t try.

But his words had always just been a shield to hide behind, the only weapon he’d had for so long. No matter how inspiring Yugi thought his words were, how cleverly crafted the lines (and he wouldn’t deny that, deflection was a survival trait he’d learned well) Ryou always teetered behind them hoping no one would notice how flimsy the speaker was.

“Malik.” Best to start with getting his attention. They couldn’t linger here too long.

His mind skipped over the reason why, detouring around a hold that would crumble under his feet and landslide him into a black hole of horror.

“Malik, we need to go.”

_Plop, plop._

Ryou moved over to his friend, a wavering touch hovering over Malik’s shoulder before he enclosed their hands. Malik startled and faced Ryou.

Ryou cupped his cheek, stared into the kohl-rimmed eyes, no longer pointed in style but the black smudged. He didn’t want to ask.

“Do you want to talk about it?” But he did ask, because that’s what friends do.

Ryou felt a minute shake, the tips of Malik’s bangs bushing over his knuckles.

“Okay then.”

Ryou took a deep breath and let it out.

“Do you know where to go from here?”

Another shake. Ryou hadn’t expected that. Malik always had an idea of where to go. Ryou went to ask again, pester him that surely he had some idea, but Malik’s face was lax and his pupils dilated. Ryou spread fingers to feel his pulse and it was slow and heavy.

He was disassociating, retreating into himself. Last time he did that it caused another personality to spring up in the space and ultimately take over.

When one of them fell down the other was there to pull them back up, that was how they worked. Ryou just wished both of them were up right now because he was barely holding himself together.

Either way he had to get Malik to focus.

Ryou pinched him on the arm but it did nothing.

Again. Malik blinked but his skin still felt cold to the touch.

Ryou brushed his hair, feeling the frayed strands, held the nape of Malik’s neck tight and kissed him gently. Pulling back, Ryou exhaled. Malik blinked once more. Ryou kissed his friend again. He traced Malik’s top and bottom lips with his tongue, nibbled at the lower one, pulled at it.

Ryou didn’t think about how they’d always only been friends, how Malik had teased him with his nakedness and pushed him past comfortable boundaries that only now were norm. He didn’t think about how this next step felt less like some huge epiphany and more the gentle roll from spring into summer.

As always Ryou, great timing.

Eyelashes kissed butterfly kisses against Ryou’s own and slowly, with a bit of pressure at first, his kiss was returned. Ryou kept him in his palm gently, playing with the forest of hair strands. Malik’s temperature rose, he angled his face - a simple bump of nose and deepened the kiss.

Ryou let out a note of relief and then Malik was devouring him.

“Ryou, Ryou,” he mumbled, a plea like a prayer to a God. He pulled Ryou onto his lap, sitting back on his butt and after split clarity of realization and hesitation, Ryou followed Malik’s actions. Arms held him close, warm spots on his spine, and those spots trailed to his hips, tingling the skin there.

They separated and breathed in each other.

Ryou opened my eyes and Malik was staring at him in fond wonder. He wanted to dive, hide, but Malik spoke his own “thank you,” against Ryou’s lips and he could only nod in reply.

He didn’t think it was what Yugi had had in mind but it seemed this time, he’d had something stronger than words.

*

**RYOU**

A dead end.

They turned to try the previous left they’d passed, Malik thoughtful in his silence. He kept the torch out in front lighting their path to retrace their steps but they were too late.

There was nowhere to go.

Their path back was blocked.

They were there.

Bloodied, disembodied souls that were meant to be dead and gone.

“That one’s got a bit more fire in him than I remember Malik.”

Malik instinctively stood in front of Ryou, though his frame trembled beneath Ryou’s touch.

Marik delighted in cruelty, born from rage and pain and culminating its existence in Malik’s death, Ryou had been told.  Well, that had been the plan, but Malik had just refused to die.

“Touch him and I’ll tear your skin from your bones,” Bakura – The Spirit of the Ring - said, not looking away from Ryou. Funny how his own name could take on such a different feeling when given (stolen) by another person.

His hair was matted with dry blood, Marik’s too, and both of them had lost their cloaks somewhere along the way.

Ryou felt a node of guilt in his throat but he swallowed past it. He’d had no choice and really, The Spirit had deserved it.

Ryou didn’t feel any guilt for Marik however.

“What do you _want_?” Malik near yelled in an exhausted rage. “What is it you really want? And how are you here? How are we even here? Why is this happening?” Malik asked the questions Ryou had been wondering all night and both spirits shared a look.

“Still as stupid as ever Malik, when we become one again I’ll cut you a new set of ears so you can listen better next time,” Marik offered and for all purposes he actually seemed sincere about it.

“I’m assuming by that that Marik has already told you what he wants Malik. As to your other question I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you. I was defeated, by that pathetic child and that cursed Pharaoh but here I am, unable to be judged because I lack the requirements. What do you think of that Ryou?”

The Spirit said Ryou’s name like he could lick his tongue over it.

He hated it. It was validating, liberating.

Invasive. Terrifying.

He would’ve thought knocking The Spirit out would’ve put some sense into his head, but guess not. The Spirit was nothing if not persistent, stubborn.

Obsessive.

“Maybe it was less that Osiris couldn’t judge and more that this is your punishment,” Ryou said, anything so he’d stop feeling like cornered pray. Malik kept him behind his back, trying to keep Ryou out of The Spirit’s sight. But those eyes seemed to pierce right through Malik and into Ryou’s body, tightening his muscles in a flight-fight response.

The Spirit laughed, high and wild, gesturing around them. “Well isn’t that funny Ryou, because that means they must be punishing you too. What do you think about that? It makes sense though now that you say it. I’ve lived long enough to see that the Gods don’t care about innocents, boy.”

“I don’t know what Gods there are Spirit, and I don’t know what they think but I make my own decisions and we’re getting out of here.”

The Spirit lowered his hands, the laugh cutting off.

“And look where you’ve ended up Ryou, back here, with me.”

Ryou stared The Spirit down and said, “And my decision is to leave.”

“Not without me.”

Ryou’s teeth chattered and he flashed back to that moment in the church when The Spirit had completely and utterly overwhelmed him. He’d forced Ryou down onto the floor, the statue of Jesus watching from his perch on high, omniscient and useless.

He’d held Ryou’s wrists above his head, let the boy’s legs kick out and bunch the carpet beneath them and melded their bodies together. He’d invaded every part of him and Ryou’s last defiant act had been to retreat to his soul room and lock the door shut.

It would’ve taken The Spirit weeks to break in and so they’d reached a stalemate. The Spirit didn’t hurt Ryou nor did he try to convince Ryou to join his side. In return Ryou didn’t fight back for control and he didn’t tell anyone what was happening.

And then time had flown by, times when Ryou had gotten his body back and times when The Spirit took over. There had been no rhyme and reason to it, but in the midst of their stalemate things had subtly changed. The Spirit had generally knocked on the door before giving back control, notes had been left around like snippets of a diary (it was the life of Ryou Bakura but he hadn’t been the one writing it) and whispers in his ears had told him answers to his friend’s questions.

The Spirit had no time to fight Ryou, or maybe he hadn’t wanted to. But whatever it was, the months had gone by in a blur and underneath it all had been the overwhelming desire to build the diorama.

He’d asked questions, a sly one here and there but he’d never quite been able to figure out what was going on.

Not until right near the end.

But at that point maybe he hadn’t really wanted to know. They’d rarely talked about The Pharaoh, the blur of those months cut down into a few key memories.

Once they’d worked on an assignment together, watching TV together – Ryou had even convinced him to play a simple (non-shadow) board game. But a handful of lucid moments wasn’t enough to make up for the rape of his body – and it had been, he’d been violated, and taken against his will.

It isn’t enough.

The Spirit may be singing a different song, but his actions would always speak the truth.

“I’m not letting you get anywhere near him you psychotic monster. You tortured him enough last time,” Malik said, a comforting source of determination, always coming to his defence.

“You had a hand in that too,” The Spirit sharply pointed the blame back and Malik tensed.

Ryou unclenched the shirt and pressed his palms flat against Malik’s back, trying to ease his guilt.

_‘It’s okay, I forgive you.’_

Malik shifted on his feet. “I know what I’ve done. And I’ve apologised. I feel remorse for my actions. You and Marik are just the same.”

Marik’s grin had never really left, his teeth so sharp.

There was dried blood on his lips.

“Monsters don’t feel remorse,” Malik burst out, seemingly unable to keep his anger in check within proximity to Marik.

“Remorse?” The Spirit took a step forward, Ryou and Malik instinctively taking one back, pressing close into each other and going to the balls of their feet. “You want remorse? I am sorry that I didn’t kill The Pharaoh. I’m sorry I listened to your shitty plan. I’m sorry I’m stuck here in this dead tomb with an insane fragment of your psyche. Don’t talk to me of remorse and despair child when the souls of your massacred village haven’t haunted you for 3000 years screaming their pain and revenge.”

“You should’ve just eaten their souls then,” Marik cut in, having been quietly idle long enough. “They’d shut up that way.”

“Oh shut up you buffoon. That will come back to ruin you,” The Spirit snarked in distaste.

Ryou thought Marik would wrap his dark hands around The Spirit and strangle him but maybe they’d been down here long enough to know they couldn’t kill each other.

Instead Marik said, “I’m here now. And they are with me. I gave them freedom from that trap.”

Ryou didn’t know what they were talking about, but when he peeked at Malik’s face, he seemed to be fighting revulsion.

“Only to be trapped here. Great plan,” The Spirit argued back.

“Those poor souls,” Malik whispered to himself but Marik’s ears were fine-tuned to his voice and he titled his head.

“It’s not as if they were going anywhere, and we’ve had enough time to get used to each other anyway. Wasn’t it a great idea though? Now I don’t need your energy or body to keep me alive!”

But Ryou thought, then what did he want with Malik?

“Alive yes, but I don’t know if you could call this living,” The Spirit always had to put his two cents in and Marik dropped his gleeful revelation to restart their argument.

“You two can argue all you want, seems you have eternity to do it down here together,” Malik seemed to pull himself together. “But Ryou and I want out.”

Whatever temperature it had been dropped dramatically, the air chilling and white plume of his breath hovering in front of him. Which was not comforting and reinforced the strange feeling Ryou had that this place was not exactly what it appeared to be.

“My Landlord is not leaving without me.”

None of this made any sense.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone. Why can’t you just let me be happy? What did I ever do to you to deserve this?” Ryou asked as he had asked before. Why did he bother, he knew it was futile. The Spirit had never properly answered, citing;

‘ _Even bad things happen to good people.’_

_‘If you weren’t so weak this wouldn’t be happening.’_

_‘Your body was made for me boy, blame the Gods if you must.’_

“Ha,” Marik’s laugh boomed. “The Spirit is lonely, he wants to be with his little host so he can be happy.” Marik’s lipped curled back as he appraised The Spirit. “Pathetic.”

“Oh and what of your reasons Marik? As if you have a chance of convincing someone that tried – no did – succeed in killing you.”

“And what’s your aim? Get out of here and try to kill The Pharaoh again?” Malik queried, reaching back to tap Ryou’s right leg.

He tapped it once.

Ryou thought hard, they had been heading to the path on the right (previous left), just a little in front of Marik. It would be scary to run but if they were quick enough . . .

“I don’t remember the names of people I’ve tried to kill Malik. If he gets in my way I might but I have more important things to do.”

“You’re as evil as ever,” Malik hissed.

“And yet I came from you little light,” Marik’s veins bulged. “What do you think that says?”

Two. Malik tapped his leg again.

“Let’s finish this Malik. You are not complete without me.”

“Yes I am you f-“

“I can survive on the souls of eaten but it’s not enough, something keeps me bound down here. So we will be together once again.”

“No way in hell.”

“It’s alright,” Marik soothed, though he didn’t really have a voice for soothing. Malik seemed to falter at the consolation. “The other souls are teaching me things other than the hate and rage and violence you birthed me from. So I will try to not make it hurt so much this time.”

Malik’s arm went to push Ryou back further, to protect him.

The Spirit saw it, his eyes flickering between the two of him as he took in the situation. Ryou had the urge to leap away from Malik, as if he’d done something wrong.

He hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Quick to jump masters aren’t you.”

Malik said “I’m not his master,” but it was Ryou, high on adrenaline and fear, that couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Better master than you.”

The Spirit stared him down, and as always, it was overwhelming to be under such scrutiny.

But Ryou unlocked his knees and stood up straight (even if he was still cowering behind Malik, hands trembling against his back.)

“You can’t be happy without me, nobody knows you like I do. What would they think if they knew you helped nearly succeed in killing their precious Pharaoh? Do you think they’d accept you? Or have they already left in the years that have passed?” The Spirit tried to get under Ryou’s skin even as he could see Marik twitching in his spot, sick of the talk.

Malik’s finger wasn’t tapping on his thigh anymore so he didn’t know when to go but it wouldn’t matter anyway. Ryou pushed Malik’s arm down and stepped out from behind his friend, ignoring Malik’s hushed, “Ryou what are you doing?”

“And yet, I’m always happier when you’re not around,” Ryou said, and yes it was mostly true but also he wanted it to hurt. He’d never thought before that he could hurt The Spirit, never been the type of person to really revel in bringing up another’s vulnerabilities.

But this was different, The Spirit was different. He wanted the barb to dig in and cut its way down to what was left of The Spirit’s heart. If there even was a heart – though Osiris seemed to think otherwise.

He could feel that anger taking the reins, making him speak even as the more rational side of his mind tried to reason that no good would come of this.

“I guess even your village was happier off dead if it meant being away from you.”

He said it, he couldn’t believe he’d just said it.

It seemed no one could, though Marik had an impressed look on his face, eyebrows raised and cheeks pulled with the beginnings of a smirk. Ryou swallowed in the silence.

An apology was at the edge of his breathe but a part of him still didn’t want to say it. He felt almost giddy with the terrified elation he felt at saying something he’d nastily thought but never had the guts to say.

He didn’t get the chance to decide anyway.

The Spirit’s hair started to raise on its end and those perfectly kohl-lined eyes widened. “Oh little Ryou, little Ryou, I always knew there was a nasty streak to you. But unfortunately for you, even dying won’t let you escape me.”

Malik said, “Three.”

They both ran for the opening, the action so unexpected that they were already in the tunnel before Marik and The Spirit had started to give chase.

The light of the torch barely lit their way and at any moment Ryou was terrified they would run straight into a wall. Ryou kept pace with Malik but had to follow him and it was a near-miss when Malik veered to the right.

Ryou nearly lost his footing, slipping and catching himself against the wall. The Spirit and Marik chased after them, and The Spirit called out, “you can’t escape me Ryou! I’m always there in the end.”

Marik delighted in his own, “I know these halls better than you Malik, I was the one that revelled in the dark not you.”

Malik kept running, his breaths keeping a steady pace though Ryou’s heart thumped erratically.

‘I eat too many sweets’ Ryou deliriously thought. ‘I probably need to cut down the sugar in my tea.’

“Keep going Ryou,” Malik shouted, turning back when he noticed Ryou had lagged. Nice of him to notice this time.

It was terrifying to run full speed straight into nothing but Ryou put all his faith in Malik’s skills and sped up. Malik reached back and grabbed his hand, propelling them both along.

Unfortunately it was at that point that something sharp cut into Ryou’s foot, the sharp sting of it at the ankle and taking the strength from his leg.

He collapsed, able to react fast enough so he landed on his shoulder instead of his face. He’d let go of Malik to protect himself and not to drag his friend down with him but Malik hadn’t let go of him.

Ryou slid across the ground, stone cutting into his skin and tearing his clothes. Malik’s hand unclenched with a pop as his arm was pulled from his socket and he screamed a sharp cry that echoed down into the black depths of the tunnel.

‘Get up, get up,’ was all Ryou could think and he tried but The Spirit was already there.

Ryou, his whole left side aflame, scrambled back as The Spirit grabbed onto his leg but his hand slammed down on something thrumming warm and pointed.

Ryou stared at the Millennium Ring in his hand and a high-pitched noise screeched in his ears. His brain short-circuited and he just stared in disbelief because The Ring should not be here, it should be back on the Millennium Stone.

Another set of fingers, so similar to his own, but longer, more slender, crawled up over his. The Spirit reached up to cup Ryou’s face and said against his lips.

“I guess lucks’ on my side this time.”

The Spirit kissed him, opening his mouth, licking his way in.

And poured himself inside.

*

**MALIK**

Malik, eyes screwed shut, opened them half-mast in time to see the glow of the eye on Marik’s forehead reappear. Malik kicked his foot out, making contact with Marik’s shoulder but it wasn’t enough to deter him.

His shoulder was a fierce, throbbing pain and sweat pooled at his temples. Malik curled away from his limp arm, try to use his uninjured side but it was too late. Marik threw himself upon Malik, laughing maniacally and The Rod appeared, rolling simply into Malik’s limp hand. He jerked, feeling the weight of it through his screaming nerve endings but his fingers closed around it without his choice.

A scarab crawled over Malik’s knuckles and bit into his finger.

The eye in the centre of Marik’s forehead shone, Malik feeling an odd echo of a burn on his own forehead.

He screamed, “No!”

“It’s okay Malik,” and it was more terrifying to have Marik say it, a throwback to early childhood days when he’d first thought the voice in his head was the only friend he had.

“I was wrong last time but now I know. We’re stronger together,” Marik said and plucked the rod from his grasp. It went easily, the scarab jumping from his skin to The Rod.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, I don’t want to hurt you anymore. This time will be better.”

And for the first time ever, Malik was on the opposite side of The Rod, the opposite side of that power and he couldn’t stop it.

He couldn’t do anything.

His last sight was of a quiet, collapsed Ryou, The Spirit pressing their bodies so close together that he lost the boundaries of where their bodies end and began.

And it was of Marik; Marik with his hand on Malik’s chest, holding him down, strong legs either side of him and The Rod a large golden blob.

Marik put The Rod to his head and then it all went away.

The pain in his limbs, the fear of Marik, his worry over Ryou.

His anger at his own helplessness.

All of it. In an instant.

Gone.

 

 

 


	13. Ryou and Malik's evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so it ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was sick last week so no update but here it finally is, the finale!

**YUGI**

There was a crowd surrounding the entrance, orderly in the way that curious folk are, held back by the Egyptian security. A distressed man, head covered in cloth, was running his hands over each other like water gurgling down a river.

Ishizu, a quick step beside him, translated. Yugi considered himself fairly fluent in Egyptian, making leaps of intuition where others had to study and which he could only consider an influence of housing an Egyptian Pharaoh –but the man’s word were unintelligible, thickly accented with a dialect not from the main cities. The guide was obviously reverting to a childhood accent in his panic.

Yes, as he had said, the two had disappeared from the back of his tour yesterday, and only after they had returned out the entrance, had the rocks rumbled and rock face shattered and collapsed behind them. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them, though the flashy-looking one had ceased to make his erroneous observations.

The other had spoken Japanese, but surely been of some Western descent. His hair had been an odd white, eyes blue.

Yes, he couldn’t tell them anymore. Yes, there were a few short offshoots tunnels but no, they couldn’t have wandered off too far.

Yugi had hoped, wished his senses wrong. But the feeling of tiny insect feet crawling all along his skin and the taste of dust in his mouth had been too strong for him to ignore his instincts. So he’d called Kaiba, promised a duel when he returned (though he had not played in over a year other than some mock-battles with Joey, and Mai when she’d visited) and come by a KaibaCorp private plane. He’d called Ishizu at the museum when Rishid hadn’t answered, bypassing any guilt at interrupting her during work hours (high-strung on the edge of his seat, phone wet from the sweat of his hand, somehow alternating between hot and cold and sensing something even though he had never been the one with precognitive powers.)

Rishid was searching the car park for the one Malik had borrowed, Ishizu sending him quietly on the errand like she knew what they were walking into.

His worry and anxiety suddenly morphed into knowledge, hit with it the way Slifer’s bolt charged the ground.

Laser-point focused, Yugi knew exactly where to go. Behind him Ishizu murmured to the security guard and then in the moment he was distracted, Yugi was running. There were cries and a few hands tried to grab at him but he swiftly ducked, still shorter in stature than most.

He was on a rock mound and tearing into it with all his strength, the dry rock seeming to part like the red sea. There, like the Millennium Items called to each other, he could feel his two friend’s psyches calling out to him. He could feel where his two friends were buried. (He didn’t have time to think how strange it was, he’d lived the last five years with no supernatural incidents but he fell back into like it was only yesterday.)

They’d come here for closure, not to be buried by it.

A burly arm was around his chest but he screamed and kicked and threw the last rock away. And there it was, a golden-bronzed wrist, bare of its usual bracelets.

“They’re here,” Yugi called and one of the rescue crew, realizing what was happening, told the security guard to get to work.

The security guard dropped him immediately, thick callused hands immediately setting to unravelling the mound. Yugi coughed in the dust but was consumed with the drive to get his friends out. Ishizu; elegant, refrained Ishizu, took her bracelets off, dropping them by her feet before kneeling down beside him to dig. The emergency staff was willing to take all they could get, and bit by bit, Malik was revealed, his mouth bloodied and face ashen. Ishizu, the closet to him, felt immediately for a pulse.

Her back was ramrod straight, her lips trembling as she waited for a beat.

She let out a shaking near-sob of relief.

“He’s alive.”

She was moved out of the way by paramedics, going with a restrained reluctance.

A tiny bump of something pressed against Yugi’s arm followed by a warm breeze. He would have have ignored it, but the warm breeze swept across his skin again, a rhythmic brush almost saying, _‘hey, you, why don’t you pay attention? Look at him_.’

A nose, the curve of dusty eyelashes blended into the rocks and there was Ryou.

They pulled him out, his clothing scratched and torn, with visible cuts littering his left side. The paramedics took them and, meeting up with Rishid who had just arrived with a grave expression and worry in his footsteps, they followed the ambulance to the hospital.

If he had only thought to turn back at the remains of an old-world culture, he would have seen the sun reflect off something bronze in the rubble.

He would have heard the tiny scuttle of something following after them.

And he would have seen a luminescent glow where a crack in the ground seemed to suck up all the sunlight and aim it down. Down, down, into the dark.

Life reaching into death.

*

**MALIK**

Malik woke in a hospital, his sister sleeping by his bedside, a sentry Rishid, and Yugi fiddling with his phone as he stared out the window. Malik couldn’t quite remember what had happened.

The pain of something heavy smashing into him, pressing down on his chest and snuffing out his air. Ryou crying out. Fear; something in his mouth. Love; holding Ryou’s hand.

His body was tender it seemed and yet, he felt an odd sort of peacefulness he’d just touched the edges of when his family spent time together or when he was particularly overtaken by a wave of affection for Ryou.

It was the most peaceful he’d felt in years.

Almost as if he was whole again.

*

**RYOU**

Yugi wiped the tears of relief from his purple eyes, Ryou sending him off with a cheery smile and a request of chocolate. It had been days and the others were coming via Otogi’s plane. Kaiba had even paid for all the medical bills, probably so Joey would cease to harass him about coming for a visit and _‘actually acting less like a block of ice and more like their friend, you emotionally-stunted jerk.’_ They all knew Joey would tone down his criticisms, but not stop until at least a card arrived (an actual get-well card, not of the trading variety though Ryou wouldn’t be surprised to see one.) Ryou had to wonder if Kaiba would ban Joey from his company building again and how long it would take until Mokuba overrode the order.

Ah, there it was, with not a single blue-eyes, white dragon reference to be found.

Propped up against his pillows, he read it and then thanked the nurse as she put the letter amongst all the others (none from Ryou’s father, who of course had no way of knowing his son was in hospital unless said son told him so – Malik had been his primary contact for about 3 years now though Ishizu generally took over when they were in the same country.)

Malik, a usual chatterbox beside him, was napping, his siblings gone for the moment.

Ryou gazed out the window.

His thumb rubbed at his palm, its skin smooth, unmarked and free of where a scar had sat for over five years, a remnant of his first rebellion against The Spirit.

He didn’t understand how it was gone but he felt as if the hole in him was somehow filled. Maybe he really had got closure by coming to Egypt (though he could’ve done without the whole being buried alive part.)

Maybe The Pharaoh and whatever Gods were up there had forgiven Ryou in the role he’d played with The Spirit vengeance.

Maybe he could finally forgive himself and forgive The Spirit too. There was no point in hating the dead and maybe by this he could finally come to terms with the cacophony of mixed emotions he’d always had for his first friend. His first enemy.

It was strange, these thoughts that whispered around him softly like all he’d finally screamed all his pain out and now he felt the relief of it all. It was almost like he’d been reborn from the dirt of the earth and given a second chance.

Ryou touched where his scar should be and finally felt ready to move on.

*

**EPILOGUE**

Underneath the rubble and te outcries of the Heritage Landmarks society, a beam of sunlight made its way down into the dark.

It lit up an area so shrouded in death and sacrifice and purified everything it touched.

A white light opened up like a doorway above a cracked stone slab.

Ghostly projections rose up to that doorway of light, drifting to either side as if something stood in their way.

“Father, how am I . . .? What is this?”

All 3000 of The Spirits gave voiceless utterings of forgiveness and rebirth, purification and redemption. In the end they hadn’t quite gotten the vengeance they’d wanted but the last child of their people had suffered enough.

And Kul Elna had survived in its own way, going down the generations to a half English-Japanese boy that deserved to be loved. Maybe they whispered, this would be a fresh beginning for the two of them.

They’d make sure of it.

A woman whispered prayers for her child, having loved both halves of him. They needed to heal and learn to come together in, in whatever manner it took.

_“I suppose I can wait a bit longer”_ she murmured as something formed in the doorway of light.

A shape took form, floating down towards the stone slab, the shape of feet coming to a rest on the ground before the slab. A long blue cape billowed behind the figure, the gold and red of its hair gleaming like the sun and flames in the light.

“How can this be?” The figure questioned, staring in astonishment at its hands. It clenched its fists shut in realisation as it gasped out a name before looking back up.

A human with the head of a scarab, holding a staff, was a shadowy blur in the doorway of light. It’s power echoed down into the cavern and the figure on the ground felt life pump through his veins, air fill his lungs.

The staff writhed with tiny scarabs but they all paused as the God spoke down to the figure on the ground.

_“Your journey does not end here. All things can be reborn anew.”_

And within the moment of a heart beat there it sat on the stone, gleaming brightly and calling to its owner, no longer formed from death and pain but sacrifice and forgiveness.

The Millennium Puzzle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end!  
> I'll be putting up the scan of the map next week :)  
> There's a lot I could say now that I've finished this but it would go on for too long so I'll just say this:
> 
> 1\. Thank you for enjoying my story (and please let me know of any novels/fics/shows that have similar vibe, I'm always out on the prowl for emotionally-charged, creepy stuff)
> 
> 2\. Don't be afraid to let me know what you think (meaning comments of course are always appreciated) or any questions you may have - I'm still waiting to see if someone understands where all the chapter titles are from~
> 
> and 3. I never wrote this with the intention of shipping Malik and Ryou together but they just came together naturally as I wrote and I'm glad they did. This is by no means the end of their story but I don't really intend to write a sequel. I set out to write a creepy, tense story with characters I love and that's what I did. The story expanded upon what I'd originally planned but what story doesn't? I'm just happy I've written it and it's out there.
> 
> Much love,  
> Jasmin ღゝ◡╹)ノ♡


	14. Map

**Author's Note:**

> I plan to update every Saturday.  
> But I'm a writer, and this is a fanfic.  
> Please have faith in me~ ahaha  
> (；◔ิ з◔ิ)♡


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